Big diagrams are not divided in multiple pages

[Frank Ertl]

Hi there,

we have a really big activity diagram we want to be printed in the report with eaDocX.

Unfortunately eaDocX seems to ignore that in the diagram properties the checkbox “Divide Diagrm into Multiple Pages” is ticked and tries to render the diagram as one picture on one page.

Is there any other possibilty to have the diagram rendered on multiple pages as shown by the page grid lines in the diagram in EA?

Regards,
Frank

[eadocX Support]

Hi Frank,
Sadly, we can’t split diagrams. Sparx have chosen not to make an API call available for this, despite repeated requests. Until they do, this feature won’t be available.
With my Business Analyst hat on, I do wonder why we draw these mega-diagrams, which our readers need to glue together to see the big picture. I teach people to have larger numbers of smaller diagrams, and leave the big diagrams in EA. This would be true even if eaDocX could split big diagrams.

[Frank Ertl]

OK, I see your point. And I do agree that it is better to have smaller diagrams in which I can sort of zoom using other diagrams on a finer level.
Unfortunately we have some activity diagrams containing up to 10 actions and 4 decisions that can’t be split anymore without loosing sense. These diagrams won’t get resized to fit on one page.
Is there any possibilty to get this done without rearranging all items in all those diagrams?

Regards,
Frank

[eadocX Support]

Best you can do with eaDocX is to set the diagram to print Landscape: set this in EA in the Diagram Properties, and then eaDocX will switch to a landscape page just for that diagram. Does mean the writing may be a bit small.

[Phil Chudley – Dunstan Thomas]

Or, you can use EA’s suppress Line Segment feature to “split” lines across page breaks on your big diagram.

Copy the big diagram (using Project Browser right-click menu)

Paste as Shallow copies n copies (preferably to a new package) of the big diagram

On each Shallow copy, delete elements (Delete key on the diagram) so that you are left with just the elements on a page … work at a high zoom level

Move all elements to “page 1”

use eaDocX to print all these individual diagrams in page order

Wow, its a lot easier to do than to describe and a fair amount of work

Of course only attempt the above when the big diagram is in a steady state!!

The above works, sure, but in the end I agree with eaDocX Support, keep diagrams small and focused, link diagrams together using abstraction (Composite elements or call actions)

All the best

Phil

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