{"id":307,"date":"2010-03-31T23:41:28","date_gmt":"2010-03-31T22:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/?p=307"},"modified":"2010-04-01T10:07:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-01T09:07:00","slug":"visio-2007-tips-and-tricks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/2010\/03\/31\/visio-2007-tips-and-tricks\/","title":{"rendered":"Visio 2007 Tips and Tricks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I decided to up my Visio-fu, and also to settle on a set of standard templates and shapes for my network diagrams. A quick browse around <a href=\"http:\/\/my.safaribooksonline.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Safari Books Online<\/a> turned up three Visio tomes, so on a quiet weekend morning I thumbed through <a href=\"http:\/\/my.safaribooksonline.com\/9780735623293\" target=\"_blank\">Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Inside Out<\/a>. Here are some tips and tricks I picked up along the way:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The Workspace is where your diagram is created<\/li>\n<li>Workspaces  contain Shapes joined together by Connectors<\/li>\n<li>Save Workspace layouts, perhaps with default Titles, as a Template  for re-use<\/li>\n<li>Find out what&#8217;s in the Workspace by going to View -&gt; Drawing   Explorer<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>A document can contain multiple Pages (workspaces) each using a   different scale, and with hyperlinks between them<\/li>\n<li>Pages in a  single document might be useful for high, medium and  low level detail in  your diagrams<\/li>\n<li>Hyperlink Shapes are hidden  in the Borders &amp;  Titles Stencil<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Stencils are the  &#8220;folders&#8221; on the left hand side which contain Shapes (strictly, Master  copies of them)<\/li>\n<li>Create your own Stencils (File -&gt; Shapes  -&gt; New Stencil); drag favourite Shapes in from the Workspace (a new Master is created)<\/li>\n<li>You can distribute the custom Stencil around your team, to encourage common conventions<\/li>\n<li>Shift+Ctrl+Left Click for Zoom In, +Right Click for Zoom Out, +Right Drag for Panning<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Drag new alignment guides out from the horizontal and vertical  rulers (NB: they will not appear on a printout)<\/li>\n<li>To set a horizontal or vertical Ruler&#8217;s zero point, Click+Drag the  other Ruler<\/li>\n<li>Go to Tools -&gt; Snap and Glue to select the Dynamic Grid option  for much improved alignment guide support<\/li>\n<li>Visio has Layers (like a poor cousin of Photoshop, who knew?!) &#8211; go  to View -&gt; Layer Properties<\/li>\n<li>Use Layers to add annotations  (call-outs or balloons) to diagrams which can be hidden for printing<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>When the Connector Tool is enabled, dragging Shapes in from a  Stencil will also automatically join them<\/li>\n<li>Alternatively to join Shapes, click the workspace shape, click the  other shape in the stencil, then click the blue arrow on the workspace  shape<\/li>\n<li>If you anchor a connector to the shape core rather than an anchor  point, dragging the shape around also moves the connector<\/li>\n<li>Right click on a connector (a line) and set to Straight or Curved<\/li>\n<li>Straight lines have their &#8220;jumping&#8221; of crossed connectors enabled via the Format -&gt; Behavior dialog<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Use the Pencil Tool to alter the lines and vertices of Shapes;  Ctrl+Click to add a vertex, Ctrl+Click on a vertex to reveal  modification handles<\/li>\n<li>When using the Ellipse Tool, hold down  Shift to draw a regular circle<\/li>\n<li>If you group shapes together (Shift+Ctrl+G, very useful) but want to   edit the group, go to Edit -&gt; Open Group<\/li>\n<li>Ctrl+D will duplicate your selection on the Workspace<\/li>\n<li>Various  operations (combine, intersect, etc) are available for shapes if you  look in Shape -&gt; Operations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Themes are a little publicised gem, useful for reformatting all your  text, lines, boxes etc in one go<\/li>\n<li>To apply current format settings to a shape,  use the Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar (sweeping brush), or Shift+Ctrl+P<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Clicking a shape and then starting typing is the simplest way to add  text; hit Esc when you are done<\/li>\n<li>Switch to the Text Block Tool (hidden below the Text Tool button) to  move\/rotate text if you can&#8217;t see the move\/rotate handles<\/li>\n<li>Setting the background (fill) colour on connector labels will make the text stand out nicely<\/li>\n<li>Don&#8217;t forget Tools -&gt; Autocorrect Options to turn off annoying  auto-corrections<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Phew, that&#8217;s my lot, but do you have any other tips? Please comment. I hope this helps!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Recently I decided to up my Visio-fu, and also to settle on a set of standard templates and shapes for my network diagrams. A quick browse around Safari Books Online turned up three Visio tomes, so on a quiet weekend &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/2010\/03\/31\/visio-2007-tips-and-tricks\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[278,354],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-documentation","category-productivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":318,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307\/revisions\/318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/networks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}