This week the Omni Group released a public preview of OmniGraffle version 7. There are several nice improvements with this new version including:

Infinite Canvas

You no longer have to choose an arbitrary canvas size when setting up a new OmniGraffle document. Instead, just click the infinite canvas and it will shrink and expand to fit whatever you’re creating.

Unified Sidebar

The Omni Group has been moving toward these unified sidebars in many of its applications. I think they make a lot of sense if they’re done right. OmniGraffle 7’s unified sidebar places relevant tools next to each other and it all made immediate logical sense to me.

Conversion Tools

There are several new conversion tools. You can now convert a line to a shape. Just add a few points to the middle of your line and start pulling it apart. You can also add points to shapes and, for the truly adventurous, you can convert text to a shape. Turning text, like an ampersand, into a Bézier-handled object is going to be useful.

There’s More

There is a lot more in the new version that I’m still experimenting with. They added SVG import and export and a new export panel that looks interesting. There’s also  a new feature called Artboards for managing specific elements in your OmniGraffle document.

I’ve been trying the beta and you can too. If you’ve been wondering about OmniGraffle, this is a great chance to kick the tires for an extended period of time. No matter how you pay for your shoes, the ability to make professional looking quick drawings and graphics comes in handy and nothing does that better than OmniGraffle.