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Wednesday, 10 February 2016 00:00

Sparx MDG Office, eaDocX, Enterprise Architect CSV/RTF comparison chart

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Sparx Enterprise Architect MDG Office

Sparx Systems released in 2015 the MDG Integration for Office.

This extension features an integration with Microsoft PowerPoint, an import/export module for Microsoft Excel, and an import module from Microsoft Word or Visio. This MDG is available for around USD145 (fixed licence RRP).

In order to understand what this MDG helps EA users achieve, I carried some tests through each of its features. As a result I summarized its features in a comparison chart, involving other tools related with Excel and Word documents:

  • Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect built-in RTF documentation generator
    • Sparx RTF document generator is based on model templates and stereotyped packages (master and model document) to define the content to generate from the EA model repository.
  • Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect built-in CSV import/export
    • Sparx CSV features include an import and export module. Specifications can be created to define the data to exchange, filters to apply, etc. CSV format usually requires additional conversion steps when Excel is used.
  • "VB Excel to EA importer" by Geert Bellekens (click here for more information)
    • Free tool to import data from Excel into EA.
  • eaDocX Word generator
    • Comprehensive tool that fully integrates and runs Ms Word within EA. Definition of the content to generate is based on different types of sections (e.g. a package content, a diagram, model view, glossary). Several options helps users define the content that they need to generate. Document versioning is also supported, amongst other features.
    • Note that eaDocX includes the exact same Word importer as in Sparx MDG Office.
  • eaDocX Excel Import/Comparison/Export
    • eaDocX integrates and runs Ms Excel within EA to run import, export, and comparison on elements, attributes and methods .

Comparison chart:

Sparx MDG Office comparison with CSV, RTF EA, eaDocX, VB Importer