You did not think one office suite would offer you this much, did you? We have discussed the main applications of word processing, spreadsheets, presentations and databases In Part 1 of this article. Here we look at 6 additional components of KOffice: Kivio, Karbon14, KPlato, KChart, KFormula, Kugar
Kivio is the equivalent of Microsoft Visio. The program is used to create flowcharts and diagrams.
Working with the program, you have a blank page where you create your charts or diagrams. To do this you use some icons which represent a particular event, operation, work or item. These icons are called stencils. In Kivio, there are stencil sets for electronics, flowcharting, networks etc.. Additionally the program has support for using Dia stencils.
The stencils can be placed anywhere in the document precisely. The stencils can also be edited; you can resize, rotate, or colorfill them. The stencils can be connected with lines and the lines are “magnetic”, meaning that you do not need to arrange a line to go to the right point at the stencil. The line “recognizes” the stencil’s shape and attachs itself to it, and moves with the object as well. You can not imagine how helpful and time-saving this feature is. You can, of course, attach arrowheads to the lines.
The document can be arranged in layers. The layers can be hidden and shown. This gives the user the ability to do almost anything with the documents. Imagine making a floor plan of your company’s floor, then create a layer to show the tables and chairs, then create another one to show the computer network and then one to show electric wiring. What you can do pretty much depends on your imagination.
Kivio can import Microsoft Visio’s .vsd files. The program can output PDF files or bitmap graphics, and since it is a part of KOffice Suite, the diagrams can be embedded in other KOffice programs, such as KWord.
Kivio is a shining star in KOffice. The only feature lacking is stencil sets, compared to Microsoft Visio. If the designers can work on creating additional sets, the program will surpass any competitor in the field.