ERD Symbols and Meanings

Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a popular software engineering tool for database modeling and illustration the logical structure of databases, which uses one of two notations - Chen's or Crow’s Foot. Crow's foot notation is effective when used in software engineering, information engineering, structured systems analysis and design. Each of these notations applies its own set of ERD symbols. Crow's foot diagrams use boxes to represent entities and lines between these boxes to show relationships. Varied shapes at the ends of lines depict the cardinality of a given relationship. Chen's ERD notation is more detailed way to represent entities and relationships. ConceptDraw DIAGRAM application enhanced with all-inclusive Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution allows design professional ER diagrams with Chen's or Crow’s Foot notation on your choice. It contains the full set of ready-to-use standardized ERD symbols and meanings helpful for quickly drawing, collection of predesigned ERD samples, examples and templates. ConceptDraw Pro is a great alternative to Visio for Mac users as it offers more features and can easily handle the most demanding professional needs.

ConceptDraw DIAGRAM Compatibility with MS Visio

The powerful diagramming and business graphics tools are now not exception, but the norm for today’s business, which develop in incredibly quick temp. But with the abundance of powerful business diagramming applications it is important to provide their compatibility for effective exchange the information between the colleagues and other people who maybe use different software in their work. During many years Microsoft Visio™ was standard file format for the business and now many people need the visual communication software tools that can read the Visio format files and also export to Visio format. The powerful diagramming and vector drawing software ConceptDraw DIAGRAM is ideal from the point of view of compatibility with MS Visio. Any ConceptDraw DIAGRAM user who have the colleagues that use MS Visio or any who migrates from Visio to ConceptDraw DIAGRAM , will not have any problems. The VSDX (Visio′s open XML file format) and VDX formatted files can be easily imported and exported by ConceptDraw DIAGRAM , you can see video about this possibility.