Why you should use SVG to make architectural drawings, and not PowerPoint (or Keynote, or Impress).

1. NDC 2017
Oslo, 16 June 2017
Filip van Laenen
Become an SVG Architect,
Not a PowerPoint Architect

2. This Talk’s Scope
• Out of scope:
• What is a “PowerPoint
Architect”?
• Is it a good or a bad thing?
• How to become one – or
avoid to become one
• Scope:
• PowerPoint as an
architecture drawing tool
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3. Not Only PowerPoint
• Microsoft PowerPoint
• LibreOffice Impress
• Apple Keynote
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4. Style Matters
• Every drawing in
PowerPoint looks so
PowerPointy
• Or Impressy
• Or Keynoty
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User
Interface
Application
Server
Database

5. 5

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7. 7

8. 8

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10. Style Matters
• Color palettes
• Styling
• Glow
• Shadows
• Shapes
• Fonts
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Gerald Streiter (https://www.flickr.com/photos/benowhere/7715649996)

11. Custom Shapes and Arrows
• Open libraries
• “Open” as in:
• Open to reuse
• Open to modify
• Open to extend
• Wikipedia!
• Scalable
• Free drawing as a last resort
• Check out Inkscape
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12. SVG Is XML
• Drawings with source code
• You can pretend you’re
doing technical work…
• Or even programming!
• sed -i 's/ff0000/f39200/g' architecture.svg
• sed -i 's/Calibri/Lato/g' architecture.svg
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13. SVG Is Part of HTML5
• Everybody can view it
• Everybody can import it
• Everybody can reuse it
• But export to PNG just to be
sure…
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User
Interface
Application
Server
Database

15. Thanks!