Category: microsoft Visio

Export Diagrams to JPG or GIF ”; Previous Next Similar to PDF, Visio can also export image formats such as JPG, GIF, TIFF, PNG and Bitmap. Exporting image formats is useful while sharing the drawing easily with others or to put it up on a web page. To export a drawing, go to the File menu, click Save As and in the Save As type field, choose from the list of supported formats. You can choose from any of the abovementioned graphics formats. Once you choose a graphics format to export to, you will get some options to choose from depending on the capabilities of the graphic format. In the following example, we see that selecting the JPEG File Interchange Format shows up a lot of options for customizing the output. The options in the Operation and Color format fields are format specific. You can leave them mostly as default. Set the Background color as white if you have a background for the drawing. Set the Quality as needed. You can also rotate the drawing or flip it horizontally or vertically. The resolution and size of the output diagram can be matched with the screen, printer, or source. You can also input a custom resolution or size. Click OK. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Opening Files ”; Previous Next To open a file in Visio, go to the File menu, which opens the backstage view and click Open. The Recent section lets you directly access the recent drawings that you have opened or saved. Based on your setup, the Open menu lists some of the file locations that you can browse for Visio drawings. Click Add a Place to add Office 365 SharePoint or OneDrive location for quick access. Alternatively, click Browse and select the Visio drawing from a local or network folder. Visio files have the extension .vsdx. Once you open a Visio drawing, you will see that the user interface changes according to the drawing. In the following example, we have opened an org chart and you can observe that the shape stencils corresponding to the org chart are now available in the Shapes pane. In case of this file, you will also notice an Org Chart tab in the Ribbon that gives you additional options for working with the shapes in the chart, and also allows linking the shapes to data from external sources such as Excel. You can adjust the spacing between individual shapes and also change the height and width of all shapes in one click. You can customize the layout of this Org chart and add additional shapes, if needed. The Compare command in the Organization Data section of the Org Chart tab lets you compare the contents of this org chart with another org chart or diagram open in Visio. The output is generated as an HTML file, which lists out the similarities and differences between the two diagrams. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Working with Org Charts ”; Previous Next Organization charts or org charts are a great way to depict hierarchy in an organization. Visio provides ready-made templates to help you get started in creating org charts. In the following series of chapters, we will learn different aspects of creating and working with org charts. Using the Org Chart Template The easiest way to get started is to use an inbuilt org chart template and build upon it. In Visio 2016, the org chart template can be found by going to the New menu. Click the Home button, click New and select the Templates tab. In the Templates tab, go to the Business category and click Organization Chart. It will open a dialog box in which you can choose the chart to be created in either Metric or US units. Select the units you are comfortable with and click Create to load the org chart shapes in a new diagram. Inserting a Top-Level Executive Shape Once the chart is created, you will notice that the Ribbon has a new Org Chart tab that lists the shape styles you can use. The Shapes pane has all the shapes necessary to use in a org chart. The shapes change based on the shape style selected in the Org Chart tab in the Ribbon. In this example, the currently selected shape style is Belt. To insert a top-level shape, drag the Executive Belt shape over to the canvas and align it to the center of the page. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Inserting Hyperlinks ”; Previous Next In this chapter, we will learn how to hyperlink websites, files, and pages. Hyperlinking Websites To insert a hyperlink, first create a text box by going to the Insert tab in the Ribbon and drawing a horizontal text box for the text that represents the hyperlink such as ‘Website’ or ‘Click here to visit us’. This text now needs to be converted into a hyperlink. To do so, select the text in the text box and in the Insert tab again. Click Link to open the Hyperlinks dialog box. You can specify the links to websites or a local file on your computer. Click OK to convert the selected text into a hyperlink. Hyperlinking Files You can directly hyperlink a text or a shape to a file. Double-clicking the text or shape opens the hyperlinked file. The procedure is similar to hyperlinking a website. Select the shape or text that you want to create a hyperlink for and click the Link button in the Insert tab of the Ribbon. In the Hyperlinks dialog box, click Browse… adjacent to the Address field and click Local File… to browse to the location of the file. Make sure that the Use relative path for hyperlink box is selected to ensure that the file path is updated automatically when you change the file location. Hyperlinking Pages Visio also makes it possible to hyperlink pages in a multi-page document so that clicking the link will directly take you to the linked page. To hyperlink pages, select a text or shape to be linked to and click Links in the Insert tab in the Ribbon. In the Hyperlinks dialog box, make sure to click Browse… adjacent to the Sub-address field. Select the destination page in the Page field. You can also set a default zoom level in the Zoom dropdown menu so that navigating to the linked page opens it at the desired zoom. Click OK twice to set the hyperlink. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Inserting Text ”; Previous Next Visio allows inserting text either within the shapes or in the document. You also get to do text formatting just like any other text editor. Inserting Text in a Shape It is easy to insert text within a shape. Just double-click within a shape to type the text. The text automatically wraps according to the shape, however, you can also press hard returns if you’d like to have your own wrapping. Notice that Visio automatically zooms into the shape to enable typing and zooms out when you click outside the shape. Inserting Text in a Document To insert a text in a document such as a heading for the chart, click the Text Box dropdown menu in the Insert tab on the Ribbon and select either horizontal or vertical text box. Then place the cursor on the document and draw a text box to start typing. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Working with Layers ”; Previous Next Layers are automatically assigned to shapes. However, Visio allows to assign layers to shapes as needed. You can also create your own layers. Let us start by creating a new layer and then assign some shapes to the new layer. Creating a New Layer Go to the Layer Properties… dialog box in the Layers dropdown menu from the Editing section of the Home tab and click New… Type a name for the new layer. The new layer will be created in the Layer Properties dialog box and will initially have zero shapes, as they are yet to be assigned. Click OK. Assigning Shapes to a Layer Shapes can be assigned to any layer. To assign a shape to a layer, click the shape or connector in the diagram and then, click Assign to Layer in the Layers dropdown menu from the Editing section of the Home tab. It opens the Layer dialog box from which a shape can be assigned to either an existing or a newly created layer. Note that the New Layer that was created earlier is now in the list. A shape can be assigned to more than one layer as well. To assign a shape to all the layers in the document, click All and then click OK. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Custom Color Scheme for Themes ”; Previous Next Visio comes with a good selection of themes and variants to suit almost any need. However, sometimes you might have the need to create a specific color scheme that reflects your organization. To do this, select a theme from the Design tab and choose a variant from the Variants section that closely matches to what you intend to create. Then, in the Colors menu in the Variants section, click Create New Theme Colors… In the New Theme Colors dialog box, give a name for the theme in the Name field. There are 5 accent colors to customize. Depending on the colors that you want to customize, choose a color for each accent. Click Apply to see a preview of the effect. Once you are satisfied with the color scheme, click OK to save the color scheme. The new color scheme can be found in the Custom section of the Colors menu. You can always edit this color scheme by right-clicking the custom scheme and clicking Edit. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Layer Settings ”; Previous Next The Layer Properties dialog box allows to change the properties of individual layers. It comprises of several checkboxes such as Name, #, Visible, Print, Active, Lock, Snap, Glue, and Color. The Name field lists the type of layer, while the # field lists the number of shapes in that type. In the following example, we see that there are nine equipment shapes in this diagram. There is a row of checkboxes for each layer type that can be selected or deselected. Unchecking the Visible checkbox makes the shape invisible in the drawing. If the Print checkbox is checked, the shape will be printed along with the others. Unchecking the Print checkbox will not print the shapes in the layer. Similarly, layers can be made active or locked. Shapes in an active layer can be manipulated without affecting the other shapes or layers. When you lock a shape, Visio prevents any changes from happening to the shape. You cannot drag the shape or change its contents. Snap and Glue will be checked, if the shapes are allowed to snap to a grid. You can also represent a layer by a color for easy recognition. When you represent a layer by its color, the shapes belonging to that layer will also be colored in the diagram. This is useful if you want to differentiate a set of shapes from another. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Connected Smartshapes ”; Previous Next Newer versions of Visio have built-in intelligence to help you place shapes between other shapes. Visio automatically adds the required spacing and connectors to ensure that the new shape is inserted in the correct position. To insert a shape between two shapes, drag the new shape in between the desired shapes, till you see green squares on the connectors and release the mouse. The new shape will be inserted with equal spacing and appropriate connections. If you delete the inserted shape, the connector extends all the way till the next shape. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Microsoft Visio – Inserting Backgrounds ”; Previous Next Backgrounds are inserted using pages called background pages. Background pages can contain graphics or text such as copyright info and other information. Background pages are always separate but appear overlaid on the main page. Inserting a Background Page You can change the background of a document by choosing from preset backgrounds or using your own background template. To insert a background, click the Background dropdown menu from the Design tab on the Ribbon and choose a background preset. This creates a new page in addition to the diagram page. You can right-click the newly created background page to rename it. The new background will be automatically applied to all newly created pages in the document. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;