Visio has had reporting capabilities for several versions, but it has not been well documented. There are blogs and videos on how to create a report, so I decided to create a document to provide more details about the file that reporting feature creates *.VRD files. To do that I had to create two WordContinue reading “A few Words of encouragement.”
Category Archives: Microsoft
Help Analyzing Shapes
I have been analyzing a Visio feature in some of the shapes implemented through the shapesheets to understand what is going on and provide guidance for anyone who wants to implement the feature on other shapes. (Sorry Dave no pictures.) The feature involve the User and Shape Data sections, some lists, lookups and nested IFs.Continue reading “Help Analyzing Shapes”
Excel Laundry Tip for Visio
After exploring the Visio Format codes I found the documentation lacking so I decided to create a Format Code Sample shape. It is basically a rectangle with a few hundred User cells that show examples of Format Codes. Most of the codes are obvious, but some require explanation. In addition to the shape, I willContinue reading “Excel Laundry Tip for Visio”
Venn Diagram
Today, someone asked where the Venn Diagram was in Visio. There is a support article https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-venn-diagram-in-visio-447d65f4-79a3-411d-811d-bfdea7f83e2d The actual description for manually creating a Venn digram is okay, but a bit of overkill. You can just create a circle duplicate it twice, move them apart and distribute them horizontally (only worry about the distance between theContinue reading “Venn Diagram”
Exploring the Visio file
I have been voluntarily supporting Visio for almost thirty years since version 1, after I found a promo version of Visio on a Windows update floppy. Before that I had been creating business diagrams by writing code to drive plotters. The first version was in assembler, the second was in COBOL. The COBOL was farContinue reading “Exploring the Visio file”
Visio Ellipse Part 2
Rotation So, what happens when a circle rotates? The Geometry row is unchanged, but the shape angle changes and the bounding box is at an angle. To correct the bounding box, you can do Developer > Operations > Union. Now the shape looks the same as before, but if you look at the Ellipse Row,Continue reading “Visio Ellipse Part 2”
Highland Fling
A while back I was intrigued by some Lego mini-figures that one of the US MVP leads had given to some of her MVPs. This started me on a project to create a Visio Lego man. It also started me thinking on what a Visio mini-figure of me would be like. Considering my heritage, myContinue reading “Highland Fling”
Colour My World Part II
Visio does not handle rows well and lists easily in the shapesheet, you can not do basic things like sorting the rows. So I use my favourite list handling app, Excel. When I need to manage large amounts of shape data, I manage it in Excel and then use VBA to remove the old shapeContinue reading “Colour My World Part II”
Converting from PowerPoint to Visio
Every so often I get requests about copying from PowerPoint to Visio and confusion about why it is not easy. The problem is that PowerPoint, like several of the other Office apps (Word, Excel and Publisher) have the ability to create Visio like drawings. These are not Visio drawings, just drawings that have Visio featuresContinue reading “Converting from PowerPoint to Visio”
WP7 Microsoft too straight laced?
For the latest round of updates to my apps, I was exploring the use of ads. So I was not surprised that one of the apps failed, but I was surprised by the reason. Acording to the report I was in violation of policy 3.7 “Certain types of Illegal Activity” and the comment said “ThisContinue reading “WP7 Microsoft too straight laced?”
john Visio MVP 