Comments on: Masking Images in Visio

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 20 May 2011 20:01:01 +0000

Hi Visio Guy,
Maybe this is not the right place for this, but here goes.
Here is my issue. I have copied an image from MS Paint and pasted it to Visio 2007. Now I would like to at a text field identical to the ones that come with Visio. The ones that have the Yellow dot so you can move them around and resize the text box. I know I can add a text box and group it with the image, but that’s not what I want to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. PS: I am not a programmer.

By: Visio Guy

Visio Guy — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:34:24 +0000

Hi Daniel,

I’m not sure what is wrong. Does your figure take a normal fill color (ie: is it in fact “closed” so that it can be filled?)

Also, I think in older versions of Visio it might be important to get the picture into Visio via the “import” function, as opposed to cut and paste. Or at least make sure you Paste Special > As Image (not metafile).

Those are the only things I can think of off the top of my head.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 11:30:04 +0000

For some reason it doesn´t work on my Visio 2003.

I apply the pattern to my custom figure yet nothing happens… is there something missing in the pattern creation I am missing?

I create the pattern with a photo, save the changes, and when apply the pattern to the figure it just does not show any pattern.

Any insight?

Thank you

Daniel

P.S. Amazing web.

By: Visio Guy » Remove Backgrounds From Images With Office 2010!

Visio Guy » Remove Backgrounds From Images With Office 2010! — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 09:45:35 +0000

[...] Masking Images in Visio Outlines a technique for using Custom Fill Patterns to contain bitmap images that can then be applied to shapes with irregular outlines. The shapes essentially function as clip-masks for the image/patterns. [...]

By: Visio Guy

Visio Guy — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:26:47 +0000

Hi Ravi!

You’d have to get an outline of that text into Visio as an imported vector-graphic. Illustrator and Freehand have ways of converting text to outlines.

Also, you could create your text with WordArt in, say, Excel or Word. It’s usually under the 3D-looking “A” in one of the toolbars at the bottom of the window.

Create your WordArt object, then copy-paste to Visio. Ungroup it, and you’ll have your text outlines! You’ll probably have to delete some shapes, as you end up getting separate shapes for fills and outlines. When you’ve cleaned it all up, select all of your outlines and combine them, via: Shapes > Operations > Combine.

Unfortunately, I’ve found that the outlines get a bit sloppy when you do this, but it’s better than nothing, and it can be done quickly.

Have fun,

- Chris

By: Ravi

Ravi — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 20:44:46 +0000

now if only there was a way to fit that image to fill text. i know this is possible with photoshop et al but i was trying to get an image to text of fairly large point size in visio. i couldn’t think of a way