Archive for MS Visio 2007

Aligning and Spacing shapes in Visio

October 9, 2010 MS Visio 2007 No comments

Aligning shapes

When you place shapes on to a drawing page, it is not always easy or possible to line them up accurately. In Visio, there are tools that allow you to automatically align shapes along their edge or centre point, both vertically and horizontally.

It is important how, and in what order, you select your shapes before you try to align them. All shapes that you select will be aligned with the Primary shape (the one with the thick pink border around the outside when you have more than one selected).

If you select your shapes individually using the Ctrl key, then you will need to ensure that you select the primary shape first, followed by all others.

If you make your selection by dragging a box around them or using Ctrl + A the primary shape will be the one that was placed on to the drawing page first. This may not be necessarily the one you want to align to.

To align go to Shape > Align…

 Align shapes

You will have the choice as to whether you want to align horizontally or vertically and if you want to align down the left, centre or right side of the shape. If you are using connectors to join them (as in a flow chart), you will need to align throught the centre or middle.

Space shapes evenly (distribution)

Visio allows you to automatically space shapes evenly, using Distribution. You can only perform this action with a minimum of 3 shapes. Distribution keeps the 2 outer shapes in place and moves the ones in between to create an equal space between all of the shapes.

 To distribute go to Shape > Distribute…

Distribute shapes

You will have the choice as to whether you want to distribute horizontally or vertically and if you want to measure the space equally from the outside or the midpoint of the shape.

 It is recommended that shapes are aligned prior to distribution and that the 2 outer shapes are in the correct position.

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Selecting shapes in Visio

October 9, 2010 MS Visio 2007 No comments

Selecting shapes

You may need to select one or more shapes on your drawing page so that you can modify them, move them or copy them.

Selecting a single shape

To select a single shape, simply click in the middle of it once. You will see a green box appear around the outside of it.

Selecting multiple shapes

To select more than one shape, click on one then hold down the Ctrl key whilst clicking on all the other required shapes.

When you select more than one shape you will notice that a box appears around both shapes and that the individual shapes also have a pink border around them. One will have a thick pink border (this is known as the primary shape), the other(s) will have a thin pink border. The importance of the primary shape becomes clear when using the alignment tool (not discussed in this article).

Selecting a group of shapes

You can select all shapes on the drawing page at once using the shortcut key, Ctrl + A. To select several shapes which are adjacent to each other, you can drag a box with your mouse around the outside of the them. This will select every shape inside that box. Ensure that you select the entire shape within the box.

Moving shapes

To move a shape, you can drag it around the drawing page using your mouse, but this doesn’t always get it exactly where you want it!

If you need to be more precise about the position of a shape, you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to nudge it in any direction on the drawing page. If you zoom in to 400% on the page and the ruler and gridline divisions are set to fine (Tools > Ruler and Grid), then you can move a shape 0.067mm at a time using the arrow keys!

You can also use the Size and Position window (View > Size & Position Window) to specifiy the X and Y coordinates on the page.

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Create a stencil of your favourite shapes

September 19, 2010 MS Visio 2007 No comments

Instead of searching various Visio stencils to create your drawings, why not put all of your favourite shapes and pictures on to a new customised stencil. You could even save your company logo or favourite Clip Art drawings on there too. Here’s how:

  • Go to File
  • Select Shapes
  • Select New Stencil
  • Drag shapes from drawing page to new stencil
  • Click on Save icon at the top of new stencil
  • Type in a name for your new stencil 

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