I agree with Michael.   Not only are they incomprehensible, but for all but the most trivial schemas you simply cannot see enough detail on a single page to make sense of it.

I find them more useful as an interactive outlining tool to help find places in the schema to look.  

Here’s an example of a *very simple* schema and what the diagram looks like (This one is from Stylus Studio).

http://xml.calldei.com/JsonXML

here

http://xml.calldei.com/JsonXML/files.xml?action=download&file=jxml.jpg

I included this diagram as an experiment on the web page but honestly looking at it I can’t make much sense out of it even though I’ve used the tool for years.

Anything much more complex than this and even on a huge monitor its only slightly useful if you can focus in and drill down on parts, while collapsing others,.

On 08/02/2011 14:22, Rudder, Doug Jr wrote:

Hi, all -

A request just came in from our publishing systems manager asking if there is a good tool to represent DTDS or XSDs as a graphical image. One of our new associates wants something more understandable than a DTD/XSD (they are new to the XML world, but want to leverage our data in their product).

I don't currently use such a tool myself, so I thought I'd post the question to the list to find out what tools may be available for this purpose.

Thanks for your help,

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Douglas Rudder

XML Data Architect

Wolters Kluwer Health, Clinical Solutions

77 West Port Plaza, Suite 450

St. Louis, MO 63146

Phone: 314-216-2227

email: Doug.Rudder@w...

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All the popular XML IDEs (Altova, Stylus Studio, oXygen) offer graphical representations of schemas. Personally, I find them totally incomprehensible - I've always hated pictures that need a thousand words to explain them - but some people seem to like them.

Michael Kay
Saxonica