Saving Diagram in electronic format?

[alistairpaul]

Does anyone have a good technique for saving/exporting a SQL Server diagram to an image file, or other file to be emailed around?

Thanks!

 

[SQLSister]

Good old Printscreen and then paste in a blank page in Word is what I use

 

[NathanGriffiths]

You could install a PDF Writer printer e.g. the one that comes with Adobe Acrobat. Then click on the results pane with execution plan in and go to File, Print and select the PDF Writer as the printer. It comes out quite well when I've tried it.

You get more information (but much less user friendly) by using SET SHOWPLAN_TEXT ON then executing the query to get a text based version of the execution plan.

cheers,

Nathan

 

[alistairpaul]

Thanks - but I've already been down both of those roads. I know Alt-PrintScreen does a decent job, but what if all of the diagram doesn't fit on the screen, but prints to fit in a page - Then you have to take multiple print-screens and put them together. As for Acrobat - I've been looking for a solution similar to Acrobat - I found a few other "Print-to-Image" print drivers, but none of them retain the exact formatting that is displayed in the screen. They don't do a "true" print, like a normal printer would.

Thanks again.

 

[DaHapMan]

If you use Visual Studio .NET to edit the diagram, you can use the option "Copy Diagram to Clipboard" in the Edit-menu.