Drawuml — PlantUML diagram editor
Edit PlantUML UML diagrams visually, in sync with your .puml file. Elements sit on a canvas, you
connect and rename them by hand, and the PlantUML code is kept up to date. Edit the diagram and the
code changes; edit the code and the diagram changes.
This is the Drawuml web editor, running inside Visual Studio on the files
of your solution or folder. It draws the diagram itself: no PlantUML server, no Java, nothing to install
besides this extension. It does not replace PlantUML's own renderer — it is an editor for the
diagram kinds listed below. Requires Visual Studio 2022 (17.14 or later) or Visual Studio 2026.
Use it
- Open or select a PlantUML file (
.puml, .plantuml, .iuml, .pu or .wsd).
- Right-click it in Solution Explorer, its document tab or the code editor and choose Open
Drawuml Diagram Editor (or … to the Side). Open With… → Drawuml Diagram Editor
works too, and Set as Default there opens such files in Drawuml from then on.
- Edit on either side. The text editor and the diagram follow each other as you type. From the
diagram's tab, Open Text Editor to the Side shows the PlantUML next to it.
The file stays an ordinary PlantUML file. Save, undo, reload and source control all work the way they
do for any other file: Ctrl+S saves it and Ctrl+Z undoes the last change, whichever side made
it.
The eight diagram kinds
| Kind |
What you edit |
| Class |
classes, interfaces, enums, members with visibility, packages, notes |
| Object |
objects and map tables with their values |
| Use case |
actors, use cases, system boundaries |
| Component |
components, interfaces, databases, queues, packages |
| Deployment |
nodes, artifacts, databases, clouds, nested as deep as you like |
| State |
states, composite states, the [*] start and end markers, choice / fork / join |
| Sequence (beta) |
participants, messages, activations, notes, dividers, alt / loop / opt blocks |
| Activity (beta) |
actions, if / while / repeat, forks, partitions |
Class, object, use case, component, deployment and state diagrams are arranged by you, or by auto
layout. Sequence and activity diagrams are arranged by the editor from the order of the code.
The diagram can be exported as SVG, PNG or PDF.
Good to know
- The kind of diagram is read from the code, because PlantUML has no line that names it. A file
that mixes two kinds, or that is another PlantUML diagram type (mind map, Gantt, JSON, …), is not
opened as a diagram and is left untouched; fix it in the text editor and the diagram appears by
itself. A text made only of names and arrows (
Alice -> Bob : hello) is a sequence diagram, as it is
for PlantUML. Component and deployment diagrams share most of their words, so a file that uses only
the shared ones opens as a component diagram on a computer that has not edited it before.
- A new, empty file asks which kind of diagram to start. Nothing is written until your first edit.
- Moving elements never changes your file. Where the elements sit, how big the boxes are and
whether auto layout is on is remembered for each file on this computer, in the extension's own folder in
your local app data (a copy of the diagram with its positions, for the 200 files edited most recently). It is
not written into the PlantUML and is not shared through source control. Moving an element cannot be
undone with Ctrl+Z. Dragging an element into or out of a package is different: the code says which
package an element is in, so that is an edit. Sequence and activity diagrams have nothing to
remember.
- A diagram edit rewrites the file in Drawuml's own formatting. PlantUML comments, your formatting
and the order of the lines are not kept, and neither is anything outside the
@startuml … @enduml
block (a second diagram in the same file, for example). Lines the diagram does not show —
skinparam, !theme, !include, title, hide — are kept exactly as written, at the top of the
file. Drawuml asks before it rewrites a file it did not write, once per file. Edits you type in the
text editor are never reformatted.
!include and the preprocessor are not expanded: the diagram shows what is written in this file.- The code Drawuml writes has not been checked against every PlantUML version. Render a diagram with
PlantUML itself before you rely on it.
Privacy
Drawuml runs entirely inside Visual Studio. It makes no network requests, has no telemetry, and reads and
writes only the file you open with it, the pictures you export, and the remembered layout described
above. Nothing is sent to a PlantUML server. The editor's page is not allowed to contact any server.
Privacy policy · Terms of service
Feedback
drawdiags.com/contact
Part of the Free Diagrams suite: Drawmaid (Mermaid), Drawuml (PlantUML),
Drawtabase (SQL), Drawpenapi (OpenAPI) and Drawlize (JSON and YAML).
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