vsdxkit documentation

vsdxkit creates, edits and analyses Microsoft Visio .vsdx files with Python. The distribution is called vsdxkit; code imports it as vsdx. Microsoft Visio is not required at runtime.

Warning

0.x API notice. 0.7 is the last release of the inherited API. 1.0 renames VisioFile to Document and Container to SwimlaneDiagram, splits Connect into an internal ConnectionRecord and a public Connector, and drops the context manager: opening closes the archive before it returns, and save() is the only write. The 1.0 design lists every change, and a migration guide lands at docs/migration-1.0.rst with the first breaking release. Once there is a release on PyPI again, pin vsdxkit<1 to stay on the 0.x names; the note below says what the index holds today.

The library works on the XML parts inside an existing Visio package. It can query and edit shapes, create common flowchart shapes, create and re-anchor connectors, extend existing cross-functional flowcharts, copy pages and render Jinja-backed templates.

Note

As of 2026-09-13 there is no release on PyPI. The first release was withdrawn after a security defect and cannot be republished, so pip install vsdxkit finds no versions until the next one lands. Install from the GitHub repository as described in Quick start. The PyPI project page shows the current state.

Guides

• Quick start
  • Installation
  • Open a document
  • Find and edit a shape
  • Save in place
  • Development install
• Create shapes and connectors
  • Create shapes
  • Palette names
  • Connector glue and routing
  • Re-anchor a connector
  • Delete a connected shape
• Cross-functional flowchart swimlanes
  • Find the container
  • Add a lane
  • Add a shape to a lane
  • Membership is geometric
• Jinja templates
  • Render ordinary expressions
  • Loops and conditional groups
  • Self assignments
• Find pages and shapes
  • Select a page
  • Find one shape
  • Find several shapes
  • Search within a grouped shape
  • Traverse the hierarchy
• API reference
  • VisioFile
  • Page and PagePosition
  • Shape, Cell and DataProperty
  • Connect and Container
  • Package limits

Format support

• Python 3.10–3.14 on Linux, Windows and macOS

• read, edit and save .vsdx

• read, edit and save .vsdm, which must stay .vsdm

• no Microsoft Visio dependency at runtime

• generated connectors and swimlanes checked against real Visio through COM

The library starts from an existing package. It does not construct a complete Visio document from an empty file. A macro-enabled .vsdm can be edited and saved, but only back to a .vsdm destination: the package kind is decided by the content type of visio/document.xml, not by the filename, so saving one as .vsdx (or a plain drawing as .vsdm) raises ValueError rather than writing a file Visio reports as corrupt. Stripping macros to convert a .vsdm into a .vsdx is not supported.

Project

Source and issues: https://github.com/firmfooting/vsdxkit

Descended from: https://github.com/dave-howard/vsdx

• Index