Visio – john Visio MVP

Being on Track

Railroad Tracks Recently I was asked if I had a Visio line pattern for railroad tracks. I did not, but it was not hard to create. Decades ago, I came across an AutoCAD collection of shapes for an Atlas HO train set, so it was not hard to use one of the straight track railroadContinue reading “Being on Track”

Refining the Shapesheet Section template

Now that I have put the Braille shapes to bed, back to the Shapesheet Section template with a quicky post. I started the Shapesheet Section stencil to help with documentation that involves the Shapesheet. I am constantly saying Visio shapes are more than clip art. When it comes to adding Shapesheet sections to documentation, VisioContinue reading “Refining the Shapesheet Section template”

Visio Braille Part 2

Before posting my Braille shape, I decided to embellish it first. The original shape was a single shape that had a Geometry section (Ellipse) for each of the dots (pips) and user cells User.Dot1-Dot6 contained the list of characters the shape represented. The Ellipses are independent of the shape and positioned by the X,Y ofContinue reading “Visio Braille Part 2”

A few Words of encouragement.

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.”

Visio Braille

I was getting withdrawal symptoms from not blogging about Visio or creating a new Visio shape for a while. I have not done this all year. Visio is a graphics package and it may seem strange that I created a shape for the blind. The shape is simple and is a good example of howContinue reading “Visio Braille”

Handling the Curves

Let us explore how Visio handles curves. This is a normal rectangle. You can add rounded corners by selecting the Format Shape Dialog. From the Home tab chose Line from the Shape Styles section, then choose Line Options from the Line dropdown. That will bring u the Format Shape dialog. Near the bottom is theContinue reading “Handling the Curves”

Show me your Id

I have been quiet because I have been trying to work out what happened to Visio to make the twisted line pattern I created at the beginning of the year corrupted. I should have taken a screen shot when it worked. It seems that there is now extra fill. Hopefully the Visio team can figureContinue reading “Show me your Id”

Looking for Answers

I regularly check the Visio section on Answers.Microsoft.com for questions to answer, but a lot of times, there is nothing new. So, sometimes I will change the URL and replace en-us with fr-fr or de-de, maybe there are new Visio questions in the French or German group. On the weekend I scrolled down on theContinue reading “Looking for Answers”

Visio Title Block

Recently a user asked in the Answers forum about Title Blocks and I figured that, that would be a good beginner’s topic to talk about. The user was familiar with AutoCAD and title blocks, but was having trouble with the concept in Visio. Most Engineering / Architectural drawings have a concept called a Title Block,Continue reading “Visio Title Block”

Does Visio have enough Precision?

A Visio user in the Answers Forums asked about an issue with the Precision feature in Visio. He was having trouble with feet-inches vs decimal feet. The “Precision & Units…” feature is not built into Visio, but is implemented by a right click feature in the shapesheet. It is in both the Metric and ImperialContinue reading “Does Visio have enough Precision?”