Microsoft PhotoDraw

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Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 is a vector graphics software developed by Microsoft. PhotoDraw fills a hole in the Office productivity suite, which includes software programs for word processing, spreadsheet, presentation and alike, but lacks a capable image creation and editing program. Office typically includes Microsoft Photo Editor, a lightweight bitmap editor.

Contents 1 History 2 Purpose and features 3 Compatibility, Office 2007 issues (solved?) 4 Resurrection demands and Expression 5 External links

[edit] History

PhotoDraw was released in 1999 along with Microsoft Office 2000 Premium Edition, but it came separately on 2 CDs. It had to be installed separately since it is not available from the main installer for the core Office programs. It was also released as a stand-alone product. A later version called Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000 Version 2 was released around 2000, featuring 3 CDs. Both versions are branded as "Microsoft Office Application," though both versions were bundled only with the then-largest Office suite, Premium Edition (Version 2 was included with the SR-1 release). It was nevertheless indeed a "member of the family," as were other Microsoft business applications (most notably Publisher) of that time.

Version 2 was released as a standalone product with a larger collection of clip-art pictures and fonts, and with Windows XP compatibility. This version was widely localized too.

After Version 2 was released, Microsoft decided to discontinue PhotoDraw. This measure was based on the popularity of the product, though later it became obvious that its satisfied users retained to it and continued using PhotoDraw along with even the newest Office versions. This was supported by the fact that Microsoft did not release any substituting graphic solutions till 2007, thus most Office users could solve their graphical needs via the now-discontinued PhotoDraw.

[edit] Purpose and features

PhotoDraw is a full-featured dual-type (vector and bitmap) graphics software like Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW or Macromedia Freehand, developed for semiprofessional business use. It includes a vast library of clip-art, and a good collection of additional fonts.

The proprietary PhotoDraw file format has the extension ".mix". This type of file can be imported by Microsoft Office 2000 and later, as well as Adobe Illustrator. PhotoDraw can also open and save in various file formats, including PNG.

As positioned mainly as a MS Office family companion and a business graphical solution suite, it was not useful enough for home users, who are more interested in manipulating digital pictures - which are bitmaps - than creating vector graphics. Microsoft has responded by bundling Windows Picture and Fax Viewer with Windows XP, developing Microsoft Picture It!, as well as creating Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Microsoft Office 2003 to expand on Microsoft Photo Editor. Furthermore, PhotoDraw was also not good enough to challenge Illustrator, the de facto standard for graphics professionals. In spite of its commercial mediocrity, PhotoDraw Version 2 regularly sells on eBay for U.S. $50–$100.

[edit] Compatibility, Office 2007 issues (solved?)

Despite its age, PhotoDraw works fine with later versions of Microsoft Office, up to version 2003. The early beta (and Beta2 Tech Refresh) versions of the Microsoft Office 2007 suite, proved to compromise the file handling and bitmap import/export filters of PhotoDraw, rendering it incapable to normally open or save any other file formats than its native .mix and the standard .bmp types. Other attempts resulted in either distorted aspect ratio, or unsuccessful saving procedures. The formerly working copy/paste image transfer between PowerPoint and PhotoDraw also got corrupted. These problems were intensively reported to Microsoft.

As of February 2007, the RTM version of Office 2007 seems to solve the problems. PhotoDraw once again works seamlessly with this build of Office, without the issues described above, apart from that objects copied from PowerPoint must be pasted as special EMF (enhanced metafile) in PhotoDraw, otherwise the latter won't recognize the content of the Clipboard. This fuels a new hope that PhotoDraw can be used with the final release of Office 2007.

[edit] Resurrection demands and Expression

Since it was very easy-to-use for and thus popular among the untrained, unprofessional office workers, as of 2 February 2007, Microsoft is still being petitioned by at least 502 satisfied users to bring it back. The actual number of users and possible future consumers of PhotoDraw are presumably larger, but chances for such a software resurrection are low, as it never happened yet in Microsoft's history.

As of February 2007, the upcoming Microsoft Office 2007 still lacks a graphic solution of the power and ease of PhotoDraw. Instead, another future product of the company, Microsoft Expression Design, which is a part of the new Expression suite is told to be filling the gap, but compared with PhotoDraw, it still is somewhat controversial.

[edit] External links

• Microsoft PhotoDraw Homepage

Additional information: http://alvyray.com/Altamira/AltamiraProduct.htm Altamira Composer, the first image-composition application, entered the market in November 1993. It featured the first-time use of shaped, floating image objects, called sprites. It borrowed its user interface paradigm from the geometry-based illustration market and 3D market. Most other imaging applications have since adjusted for the new concepts introduced in the product - for example, "layers" in Photoshop. Microsoft ceased production of the product when Altamira merged with it in 1994. Microsoft released, however, the immediate successor to Altamira Composer, called Microsoft Image Composer, bundled with the Microsoft FrontPage 97 product, and a later successor, Microsoft PhotoDraw 2000, part of Microsoft Office 2000 Premium. The latest incarnation is Microsoft Digital Image Pro 10.