Applications used to produce documents, spreadsheets, diagrams, bibliographies, or to accomplish clerical work and applications that are either a component of the operating system or helps to extend the operating system in some way including applications to visualize operating system environments. As well, applications focus on the direct transfer of files between two computers.
The Adobe Acrobat Reader is a free PDF reader that allows for reading, copying, printing, and basic annotation of PDF files. It also allows the user to open encrypted for write-protected PDF files. One popular use is to fill out pre-made forms that are generated using Acrobat Pro. Acrobat Pro or a comparable PDF authoring program is necessary to create or change structure within a PDF.
Adobe Acrobat Reader is available on MacOS and Windows.
Availability: Faculty/Staff
Adobe Bridge helps organize files and assets for creative projects. Files can be renamed, color coded or assigned star ratings through batch processing. Users can also locate assets by file type, ratings, or camera type.
Availability: Free download
Comparable: Visio
Dia is free and open source general-purpose diagramming software, roughly inspired by Microsoft Visio. Dia uses a controlled single document interface (SDI) similar to GIMP and Inkscape.
Dia has a modular design with several shape packages available for different needs: flowchart, network diagrams, circuit diagrams, and more. It does not restrict symbols and connectors from various categories from being placed together.
Dia has special objects to help draw entity-relationship models (obsoleted tedia2sql or newer parsediasql can be used to create the SQL DDL), Unified Modeling Language (UML) diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and simple electrical circuits. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to draw the shape.
Dia loads and saves diagrams in a custom XML format which is, by default, gzipped to save space. It can print large diagrams spanning multiple pages and can also be scripted using the Python programming language.
Dia is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux and is available to download at no cost here.