Circular Multi-arrows
Visio users have been requesting the ability to add more than five stinking arrows to the Circular Arrow shape. This shape, which comes with Visio, is found in Charts and Graphs > Marketing Diagrams stencil.
This article’s accompanying download offers an improved version of this shape. It allows you to add up to 20 arrows, automatically color them, and choose from 3 arrowhead styles!
Microsoft’s Circular Arrow shape is not easily customizable by users, or even crazy people/experts like me. So in true Visio-addict-fashion, I’ve built a better, brand-spankin’ new mousetrap and posted it here for your enjoyment and consumption! Tell your friends: Free Custom Visio Marketing Shapes!!! Now that’s a mouthful!
The shape comes in three flavors: Pointy Arrow, Streamlined Arrow and Bar. Each flavor comes in two “sizes”: up-to-10-arrows and up-to-20-arrows. That’s six bonus masters, just for reading this blog! Count ‘em: SIX! That ought to satiate even the most arrow-hungry of you out there!
The three flavors differ mainly in arrowhead style:
The diagram explains more about how to use the shapes, and the options available via the shape’s context menu. I hope this helps a few of you make even more dazzling marketing diagrams!
Looking for a PowerPoint version of the Circular Multi-arrows shape? Go here: Circular Multi-arrows in Powerpoint!
Edit 2007.11.26 Visio 2002 format now available:
Hi CiroM,
If you search this web page, you will find a couple of links that say “Log in” or “Register”.
Either one will work. If you have an account, then you can log in and download, if not, both links will allow you to register as well. Notice that the log in page has a link to “Register” at the bottom, so you can create an account, even if you don’t have one.
Thanks for stopping by!
- Chris
many thanks brother, this really looked great
This download isnt working?
It worked all good! Does anyone know how to adjust the width of the circles?
Hi Blair,
Glad you got the download working.
You can change the size of the whole circle just as you would any other Visio shape: pull on the green selection handles.
To change the thickness of the ring, there is a little yellow control handle at the top of the circle, on the inside of the ring. This changes the width of the arrows.
- Chris
This works great! Thanks
Hi KK,
Glad you like it!
Thanks for your cool stencil!
An idea you may wish to explore:
1. Allow text to be rotated to prevent inverted text on bottom arrows. I had to use WordArt in Powerpoint to create text then cut and paste onto Visio arrows.
Thanks again for a very useful stencil!
Hi Paul,
Thanks for the feedback, but I don’t understand what you mean. All of the text is right-side up for each arrow segment! So I don’t see where the inverted text would happen. Can you clarify?
I downloaded the program and I can resize the object, adjust the thickness of the arrows and change the color spectrum to get shades of one color, but I cannot figure out how to get the multi-colored diagram shown on the page.
@Rick. What exaclty can’t you see? The download file has multi-colored samples that you can copy directly.
Hi
I’m trying to set the colors of the Circular Multi-Arrows using Color by Value, and not getting anywhere!
I can assign my (Access) data to the individual arrows in the circle, but only one of them changes the colors of all the arrows.
If I ungroup the circular arrows after setting them up, all hell breaks loose – I can’t move them and they seem to be protected in many ways which I cannot see.
Is there a way to use data to color the individual arrows, please?
Hi Tony,
As far as I can tell, Visio only allows you to apply data graphics to top-level shapes. Since the arrows are sub-shapes inside of a group, that makes it hard to apply individual data graphics to each (sub) arrow.
The shape has a lot of ShapeSheet programming that makes all of the automatic features possible. When you ungroup the shape, you break the context in which that programming works. Ie: the shape isn’t designed to be ungrouped.
Visio 2010 has the new feature of container shapes that allows shapes to be associated together without being buried inside of groups. It might be possible to re-construct this shape using containers, such that data graphics can be applied.
For now, it would be a lot of work to alter the download in this article to do what you need.
Great tool! This is exactly what I was looking for. I do have one question though. I would like to add this stencil to my pre-existing stencils in visio but I’m not having any luck with that. Is there a way to incorporate that rather than opening your .vsd file, making the circular arrows then copying and pasting into the needed document? I apologize ahead of time if this is more intuitive that I’m finding it to be. Thanks in advance!
-Chris
M78,
They are already masters! You need to open the “Document Stencil”, then you can just drag the pre-made masters into a new stencil.
Go to File > Shapes > Show Document stencil. These are masters that are inside of the document.
VisioGuy, I just downloaded your addon and it is working well. thank you! I am looking for a very simple circular arrow that is just a single line that around and stops right before the end with an arrow tip at the end. Any ideas?
Thanks
Hi Jason,
You can draw an “almost circle” with the Pencil tool. You have to gesture an arc while you are drawing with the tool, and you will get a circular arc. Try it – you’ll get it after a few times.
Once you have your unclosed circle, you can add an arrowhead using the Line Format options.
The resulting shape will be “1D”, meaning it has a start- and end-handle, which might be awkward. If you want it to behave a bit more normally, just select it, then choose Shape > Operations > Combine. This will make the shape “2D”, so that it resizes more like a box.
Cheers,
Chris
Awesome! Thanks!
Hi Chris (VisioGuy)!!!
So excited to find this graphic … especially loved the # of arrows feature (I needed 3). Thank you so much! I will definitely be back to visit your site.
Stephanie
Just found this and am VERY new to Visio. Creating a circular group of arrows is pretty intuitive. I have a perfectly sized wheel consisting of 3 arrows. However, now I want to insert text fitted into each arrow. Is there a way to do this without using the circular text generator and then trying to fit that text into the arrows?
I like it very much, i had looked for these shapes so long. Thanks very much.
Thanks for this.
Question for you — Your circular arrow works great in Visio 2010 but when one of my colleagues tried to edit the text that I had inserted in it, she wasn’t able to do so (she CAN edit the rest of the Visio diagram). Is there something special I need to include that would allow her to edit the arrow? Thanks.
Hi Carol,
To edit the text on individual arrows, you need to be subselect the shapes. Perhaps your colleague doesn’t understand this?
Please see: Getting a Handle on Selecting and Subselecting Visio Shapes.
The colors of handles in Visio 2010 are different than previous versions, but the concepts are the same.
Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll ask her to give it a try.
How do I color the shapes separately? That is “go for the whole spectrum”?
I’m using Visio 2010.
I can edit the text for each arc, and I can format the lines and text, but format fill isn’t working.
Hi Phil,
The fill colors are locked/protected to enable the smart-coloring that you see. So you can’t easily change the colors without defeating this protection.
It involves going into the ShapeSheet for each arrow, and removing the GUARD( ) around the formulas in the FillForegnd and FillBkgnd cells.
Hi,
found a solution to this: 1. Allow text to be rotated to prevent inverted text on bottom arrows. I had to use WordArt in Powerpoint to create text then cut and paste onto Visio arrows.
Try this out:
On the master shape’s properties, add this:
user.HorizText set to TRUE
actions.row4 | (action): =SETF(GetRef(User.HorizText),NOT(User.HorizText))|(Label): Horizontal Text||(“checked”):user.HorizText
and to every subshape:
TxtAngle | IF(Sheet.1!User.HorizText,Angle-Sheet.1!Angle+User.index*2*User.angDelta,-User.angDelta2/2)
TADA! Checking “Horizontal Text” will make the text of every subshape “Straight” (level, horizontal). You can even rotate the whole master shape to place the colors you want in the place you want. (I liked mine 45 degrees to the left, positioning my first color on “top”).
Thanks for the stencil, it will be very useful.
(Mr Visio Guy, you might want to modify the master shape before posting this, see the result, and explain it in a better way, if you’d like. I wrote this super fast, and fully realize I am not “user-friendly” with my mod suggestion… =0)
Thanks again!
Sebastien.
Just right-click the shape and check or uncheck “Level Text”. This feature has been built-in from the start!
Thank you!!!!! This was what I needed to produce the kind of chart that I couldn’t with Visio 2007. So easy to use! Looking forward to more!
How can I create 1/2 a circle arrow? The shape for the multi point arrow is great, but I only need 1/2 a circle to show a repeat step in a flow diagram.
Great Stencil – Thanks!
Any way I can customize the individual arrow color vs. using the color bar and letting it decide the color shade within one color?