Amal Nagm

Create a drawing in 3 basic steps

Step 1: Choose and open a template

1. Start Visio 2007.
2. In the Template Categories list, click Flowchart.
3. In the Flowchart window, under Featured Templates, double-click Basic Flowchart.

Step 2: Drag and connect shapes

1. Drag your first shape from the Basic Flowchart Shapes stencil onto the drawing page, and then release the mouse button.
   
2. Drag your second shape on top of the first so that the blue arrows show, but don't release the mouse button yet.
   
3. While holding the mouse button, move your pointer on top of the blue arrow that points toward where you want to place the second shape.
   
4. Now release the mouse button. Your shapes are connected, and the first shape points to the second shape.
   
5. Continue to build your drawing by repeating steps 2-4.

Step 3: Add text to shapes

Add text directly to a shape

1. Double-click the shape.
   
2. Start typing.
   
3. When you finish typing, click on a blank area of the drawing page.
   

Exactly what are Visio shapes, stencils, and templates?

Shapes

Customize shapes on the spot

Rotation handles

Blue connection arrows for AutoConnect

The light blue connection arrows help you easily connect shapes to one another.

Selection handles for resizing shapes

You can use the bright green selection handles to change the height and width of your shape. Click and drag a selection handle on the corner of a shape to enlarge the shape without changing its proportions, or click and drag a selection handle on the side of a shape to make the shape taller or wider.

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Special features of Visio shapes

Visio shapes are much more than simple images or symbols.

Shapes can hold data

Each shape can be associated with data. There are a number of ways you can add data to shapes. For now, let's just see how to view or display the data after it is added.

After data is added to a shape, it isn't displayed in the drawing by default. The easiest way to see the data is to select the shape and then open the Shape Data window, as shown in the illustration below.

If you want to display the data for lots of shapes at once, you can use a feature called Data Graphics. The following illustration shows the data for two trees at once.

Note Data Graphics is only available in Microsoft Office Visio Professional 2007.

Shapes with special behavior

Too many Visio shapes have special behavior to list them all, but here are a couple of examples.

For example, you can stretch a People shape to show more people, or stretch the Growing flower shape to indicate growth.

The next illustration shows how you can measure the size of a shape on your page by using a special dimension shape that is designed for measuring other shapes. (The dimension shapes are only available in Office Visio Professional 2007.)

And below is a Pie chart shape from the Charting Shapes stencil. You can right-click the shape to set the number of slices and what percent each slice represents.

Tip A great way to find out what a shape can do is to right-click it to see if there are any special commands on its shortcut menu.

Stencils

Visio stencils hold collections of shapes. The shapes in each stencil have something in common. The shapes can be a collection of shapes that you need to create a particular kind of diagram, or several different versions of the same shape.

In the following illustration, the Basic Flowchart Shapes stencil contains common flowchart shapes, and the Backgrounds stencil contains a variety of backgrounds. You can even create your own stencil of favorite shapes.

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Stencils appear in the Shapes window.

When stencils open, they automatically dock themselves in the Shapes window, one on top of another.

Click the title bar of a stencil to bring it to the top of the stack.

The stencil that was previously on top of the stack moves to the bottom of the Shapes window.

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Open any Visio stencil

Each template opens with the stencils that you need to create a particular kind of drawing, but it's nice to know that you can open other stencils any time you want.

1. On the File menu, point to Shapes, point to the category that you want, and then click the name of the stencil that you want to use.
2. Repeat step 1 for any other stencils that you want to open.
   

Templates

Visio templates are a little harder to describe because they aren't a single thing — they are more like a collection of settings. A Visio template combines a blank drawing page with any combination of the following:

Stencils full of the shapes that are needed to create a particular kind of drawing The Charts and Graphs template, for example, opens with a stencil full of quick, easy shapes for creating charts and graphs.

Appropriate grid size and ruler measurements Some drawings require a special scale. For example, the Site Plan template opens with an engineering scale, where 1 inch equals 1 foot.

Special menus Some templates have unique features that you can find on special menus. For example, when you open the Calendar template, a Calendar menu appears on the main menu bar. You can use the Calendar menu to configure your calendar or to import data from Microsoft Office Outlook into your calendar.

Wizards to help you with special types of drawings In some cases when you open a Visio template, a wizard helps you get the drawing off to a good start. For example, the Space Plan template opens with a wizard that helps you set up your space and room information.

What's next?

Here are some suggestions for how to get more familiar with Visio.

Get help creating a more complex drawing

1. On the Help menu in Visio, click Microsoft Office Visio Help.
   
2. In the Help window, click the Show Table of Contents button.
   
3. In the Table of Contents window, click the category for the drawing that you want to create.
   
   Tip You can find all kinds of information in Visio Help if you take a few minutes to browse through it.

Discover the variety of Visio templates

Depending on the edition of Visio you use, you have between 25 (for Microsoft Office Visio Standard 2007) and 64 (for Office Visio Professional 2007) different templates to work with. To find out more about these templates, browse through the Getting Started screen, which opens automatically when you start Visio. Click the various categories, and then click the template thumbnails to see larger versions of the thumbnails and short descriptions of the templates.

Browse through the stencils

Taking a moment to open the list of stencils is a great way to get to know more about the huge variety of shapes available, but exploring a few of the stencils themselves is even better.

You don't even have to open a diagram — just click Shapes on the File menu, and then navigate down to the stencil that you want to open.

Browse through the menus

Opening menus is another quick way to get a sense of what you can do in Visio. The View, Data, and Shape menus are three of the most popular menus.

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The View menu lists all the special windows for Visio drawings as well as the commands for turning on and off the visual guides, like the drawing grid.

The Data menu lists the commands for advanced features, like importing and displaying data. These are some of the most powerful features available in Visio.

The Shape menu lists the commands that orient your shapes and connectors the way that you want them in your drawing.