Extract text from Creately diagrams (CDML)
To convert CDML diagrams to another format, you need Creately or other Data software.
To convert other file formats to the "Diagram Project File" file type, you need software like Creately or a similar tool.
The .CDML file format is a proprietary diagram storage file used by Creately, a visual collaboration and diagramming platform developed by Cinergix. These files store structural data, shapes, text metadata, and connector lines used to generate flowcharts, mind maps, wireframes, and organizational charts.
Because .CDML is a closed, proprietary format, it has severe limitations for general sharing. It is strictly locked into the Creately ecosystem. You cannot natively view a .CDML file in a web browser, a standard image viewer, or a vector editor like Adobe Illustrator. Users who do not have an active Creately account cannot easily open these files, creating significant friction when sharing diagrams with clients or external teams.
To resolve this dependency, you must export the diagram into standard, widely-supported formats. The best conversion targets are PDF for secure document sharing, SVG for lossless vector scaling on the web, and PNG or JPEG for quick image embedding in reports.
This closed architecture makes the .CDML format extremely difficult to open or convert with third-party tools. Standard online converters fail because they lack the proprietary rendering engine required to translate the raw node and relationship data into visual graphics. Even if direct graphical conversion fails, we can inspect the raw file contents. If our analysis detects an underlying XML or JSON structure, extracting text labels or partial metadata may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your CDML file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert CDML file to , you can use Creately or similar software from the "Diagram and Chart Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert files to CDML, try Creately or another comparable tool in the "Diagram and Chart Storage" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our CDML converter.