Exporting Graphics and Printing

Another option that you will find useful is the export of diagrams as graphics. Whether you want to use your diagrams in other documents, in a report, a web site, or a slide show, you can export them in a range of different formats depending on your needs.

Formats

The currently available formats are Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPG), CompuServe Graphics Interchange (GIF), Portable Networks Graphics (PNG), Portable Document Format (PDF), Postscript (PS), Encapsulated Postscript (EPS), Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), and Windows Meta File (WMF).

The first six are well known for their respective areas of usage, but for our purposes the most promising format is SVG. There are not many applications that support it yet, but in the near future this is likely to change to be the standard format of choice for web content as well as for text documents. If you want to try to exporting and viewing diagrams in SVG, there is a browser plug-in (for the Internet Explorer) available from Adobe. There also is an appropriate graphics tool called Batik, available from the Apache project.

Export a Diagram to a Graphic File:

Beginning with Poseidon for UML version 2.0.4, graphics generated from the Community Edition contain a watermark that appears in the background of the exported graphic file but does not affect any of the diagram information. Watermarks are not generated from any of the Premium Editions. The figures below depict the same diagram, but the first was saved from the Community Edition and the second from the Professional Edition.

Figure 9-2. Watermarked Community Edition diagram graphic

Figure 9-3. Premium Edition diagram graphic without watermark

Printing

You can also directly print diagrams to a printer. In the Page Setup dialog, you can specify how many diagrams to print per page - this allows you to place several diagrams on each print, e.g. 2x2. The Print function (Ctrl-P) prints the current diagram. The Print Diagrams function calls up a window for you to select which diagrams to print. You can navigate through the diagram tree and select any number of diagrams by pressing the Ctrl key and clicking the relevant entries. These printing functions are not available in the Community Edition.