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We produce Visio shapes for Tripp-Lite, a leading manufacturer of products that power, connect and protect computers and other electronics. While Visio is a 2-dimensional drawing program, it is …Continue reading
As explained in our previous article, you can access …Continue reading
So today we’re going to discuss how to spruce up your Visio diagrams with various kinds of graphics that are easily obtainable. We’ve also …Continue reading
QuotePix report in Excel Many technical drawings require a title block. There are various ways to construct a title block and to automate its contents. We’ll discuss some useful methods in the context of one of our Visio add-ons. Visimation’s QuotePix Visio add-on generates bill of materials (BOM) reports from your Visio drawings such as the adjacent sample. It has many task-easing features such as a BOM window that dynamically shows quantities …Continue reading
Vector .emf images in PowerPoint We are often asked how to use the rich Visio shapes produced at Visimation in other applications such as Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, etc. There are several ways to do this. First, we’ll discuss how Visimation has made it very easy. Then, we’ll explain what to expect when you copy and paste manually from Visio into other programs.
Barry Milliken is a practicing Registered Architect with extensive computer aided design (CAD) experience. He uses Visio for most of his design work because it’s an easy and cost effective 2D graphics program. Barry created a custom solution for drawing site plans in Visio and has partnered with Visimation to offer it as a Visio add-on product called visiSitePlan. VisiSitePlan contains several stencils with intelligently programmed shapes that automate a variety of drawing tasks. The beauty of using Visio for these kinds of plans is that you can more easily create very colorful …Continue reading
“I’ve played with the techniques mentioned. However, I can’t seem to find the way to insert an image onto the line as suggested in the article. Can you please elaborate?” Sure. To illustrate the point, I’m going to describe a simple manual method for inserting an image into a 1D shape to insert into …Continue reading
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The best way to extend the value of any asset is to use it and re-use if for multiple purposes. This goes for Visio shapes just as well as any other type of content such as images, text articles, etc.
In our previous post we discussed how to embellish your Visio drawings with clipart… you’re not restricted to the stencils that Visio provides. We’ve created a FREE Visio People stencil that you can download from www.shapesource.com by clicking on the image below. You’ll be asked to open an account so that we can manage your download but don’t worry… we won’t share your information with any other parties.
At Visimation we often receive requests to produce compelling diagrams for work or information flows. Of course we could simply use the stencils included with Visio, but we can do much better by adding other eye-catching graphics to provide more information in an attractive way. 
One of Visio’s most helpful features is the ability to snap and glue objects together with Connection Points. These are the little blue “x” symbols that you can see on many pre-made Visio shapes that come with the product or from other sources such as www.ShapeSource.com. Here we’ll discuss how to insert additional connection points in Visio shapes that you have downloaded or created yourself. While the basic operation is quite simple, we’ll explain what to watch out for so 
We’ve created a Microsoft Xbox 360 shape that you can download free from ShapeSource.com. It’s a useful demonstration of the quality and features of Visio network equipment shapes produced by Visimation. There are 4 master shapes on the stencil: Front, Rear, Perspective, and All. The All shape provides a right click menu for toggling between the 3 views. We did this to show a couple of options… separate master shapes for each view or one master containing all views.
In a recent post we discussed some of the techniques for using 1D shapes. We received an excellent question from a visitor who asked: 
To get the most value from Visio it’s important to understand how Visio shapes can be much more than clipart when properly designed. The shapes can be programmed through their ShapeSheets to behave in ways that will automate and facilitate the drawing process. One of the most powerful behaviors is the ability to link to external information via the Web through specially designed Hyperlinks. In other words, we can give you the ability to simply click on the shape and gain