It’s that time of four-year again, when (most of) the world goes nuts over a bunch of guys running around kicking a ball!
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Latest Articles
Visio 2D, 3D and Virtual Reality
You will soon be able to use Visio to create 3D scenes that you can walk through using mixed reality hardware!
Link Fields to Subshape Text
Learn how to add multiple text blocks to Visio shapes, and to dynamically display data attached to the shapes in the text shapes.
NHL Team Logo Visio Shapes
Download a set of NHL Visio shapes and learn about Visio’s data-linking features. Or just monitor standings and manage office betting pools graphically, if you’d rather!
Trumpet Valve Fingerings Visio Shape
Download this Visio SmartShape for illustrating trumpet valve fingerings, and use it to annotate sheet music. You or your students will be playing beautiful music in no time!
Visio 2016 Training Videos
I’ve provided detail outlines to this new series of Visio 2016 videos put together by Microsoft. With the outlines, you can jump straight to the videos that interest you!
Recent Articles
Amazon AWS Visio Shapes
Download my own version of improved Amazon AWS Visio shapes for use in your architecture drawings!
Fuzzy Shadow on Text Oddity
Visio 2013/16 has wonderful new formatting effects. But how they modify your shapes can be a bit strange. Read about the anomalies, and how to work around the strangeness!
Vector Math Shape: Dot- & Cross Product Fun
The downloadable Visio shape lets you visually manipulate the points that form a triangle, and see how the numerical data for the vectors that define the triangle change. You can see the vector data, dot-products, cross-products, as well as the area of the triangle defined.
Detect Drawing Units in the ShapeSheet
Learn how to create a ShapeSheet formula that can detect the measuring units of a drawing page. Apply this information to create reactive SmartShapes that can behave nicely in both Metric or US-unit environments.
Stroke-Dasharray Shape for Visio Custom Line Patterns
Define dash patterns with this clever Visio SmartShape, and use it to easily create your own custom line patterns!
View Visio Files on Android (and Windows Phone)
If you’ve got an Android or Windows phone, and you receive Visio files via e-mail attachments, there IS a way to view them while you are on the go!
Visio Circle Arrows 2013
There’s a new arrows-on-circle Visio SmartShape for you to download. It plays nicely with Visio 2013 and newer versions. Come on in and check it out!
Visio Viewer for iPad (and iPhone)
Microsoft has finally released a free Visio Viewer for iOS devices!
Thoughts on Surface Dial and Visio
Now that Microsoft has the new Surface Dial on offer, your non-mousehand will have something to fiddle with besides Ctrl + Z! What does it all mean?
Turning Pages in Visio
Learn how to navigate pages in Visio documents like a pro!
iPad Viewer for Visio by Nektony
If you’ve ever been frustrated by trying to open a Visio attachment while browsing e-mails from your iPad on the couch, then you might be interested in this Visio viewer…for the iPad!
New Book: Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio Professional 2016
There’s a new book on data visualization with Visio. And it is probably as good as its title is long!
Visio Nerd Videos – For Developers!
Watch these videos on Visio developer-related topics to learn how Visio works under-the-hood, and control it programmatically!
Truly “No-Glue-To” Shapes
Learn how to create shapes that absolutely will not be glued-to by Visio’s dynamic connectors, and how to workaround an “issue” where the normal procedure fails.
Venn Bubble Diagram Hierarchy Thingamajig Template
Download this free template that will help you to create a Venn-inspired, hierarchical bubble diagram using some nifty Visio SmartShapes!
AutoCAD 2013 + Visio 2016 + Webcast July 12
Sign up for a webcast about working adjacently with CAD and Visio 2016, and get the lowdown on the new support for AutoCAD 2013 formats.
Alt > File > Brexit
Fellow MVP David Parker from bVisual.net just posted a link to a very topical blog post that he made a few years ago.
UEFA Euro Cup 2016 Visio Diagram
I’ve made a Visio diagram that will help you track the progress of the UEFA European Cup 2016.
Simple Cabling Shape with Length Reporting
Learn how to create a simple cable shape with any arbitrary path that displays its length, even when changed or edited.
Über Rack Unit Dimension Line
Learn about the features and usage of a new shape for labeling rack units on network equipment diagrams. The shape is fully configurable, and can be used to measure and label units of any size and name.
Word Cloud Area-filling Text Shape
Download a clever Visio SmartShape that sizes text to fit rectangles of any dimension!
Lumia 950 vs. 950XL Comparison Template
Download this Visio template to print out accurate, life-sized renditions of the new Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL smart phones, then decide which one is the right size for you!
USA States Map with Equal-sized States
Download an area-independent representation of the United States, which preserves important aspects of geography without distorting the statistical message due to the wide range of state sizes.
Unioning Shapes, and Cleaning Them Up
Visio has incredibly useful functions for slicing and merging shapes. But sometimes these shapes leave artifacts that can be a pain to clean up. Check out this simple trick to make it less painful!
Deleting Visio Shapes Programmatically
A user recently asked a question in the forum; “How can I (programmatically) delete all but one shape on a Visio page?” While I answered the question directly in the forum, I thought I’d expand on the topic in a full-blown article.
Featured Articles
Über Rack Unit Dimension Line
Learn about the features and usage of a new shape for labeling rack units on network equipment diagrams. The shape is fully configurable, and can be used to measure and label units of any size and name.
Text on a Circle Visio Shape
Many Visio users would like to create graphics with text running around a circle. I’ve come up with a third iteration to solving this problem. This time, you get a single shape, with no need for VBA macro code!
Crayon Visio Network Shapes, Revisited
The popular Visio Crayon Network Shapes have been improved and extended. Have a look at what’s new and download the latest and greatest!
Radial Elements Tool
Download a tool that allows you to create a circular array of custom tick in seconds!
Automatic Chevron Process Shape
If you need a Visio shape that allows you to quickly create a chain of “chevron” arrows for your management presentations, then you have come to the right place! Our Visio SmartShape is jammed full of smart behaviors that save you a ton of time!
Random Articles
Create Better-looking, More-efficient SmartShapesAugust 9, 2008Learn how to add realistic effects to your Visio SmartShapes using innovative shadowing techniques and custom line patterns!
List Separators in Visio’s ShapeSheet are Crazy!April 21, 2010Are you developing Visio solutions that will be used […]
Illustrating a Hole in a CylinderAugust 13, 2012Visio is a 2D drawing and diagramming application that […]
More Featured Articles
Need Network Shapes? Fill Your Cup at the Visio Cafe!
Could you use 5000 free Visio network shapes in 192 Visio stencils? Find out where you can get ’em, and search our Mega Table that lists each and every network equipment item!
Word Balloon Visio SmartShape
Download this super-smart Word Balloon shape and make your Visio diagrams literally speak to your audience.
Oblique Connectors For Your 3D Diagrams
Get a configurable, oblique connector shape that makes attractive, 3D-looking connections to your 3D-looking network shapes, or other isometric drawings!
Free Visio People Shapes
Download some new, nicely-shaded people shapes, with add-on hats to boot! Learn how to find other people-related shapes that come with Visio, and discover the mysteries of Whale Boy!
Map of World
Download a map of the World, with nicely formatted and labeled shapes.
Audio Visual Components Shapes
Download a Visio stencil full of cool av connector- and terminal-shapes for creating audio-visual patch panels.
Circular Multi-arrows
Download improved versions of Visio’s Circular Multi-arrow shape, that allow for up to 20 sub-arrows, and offer some neat coloration features.