Visio Guy

If you have a need to create repeating graphical elements, then learning how to create custom line patterns in Visio is absolutely essential.

Visio custom line patterns offer a power and flexibility that will save time for both your end-users and your solution development effort. And your final product will have a refined and elegant look.

Recently, John Goldsmith of Visual Signals, UK posted two excellent articles about creating custom line patterns in Visio.

John’s articles focus on creating patterns with a random-effect, and are packed with valuable information. Not only do they take you through the process of creating custom line patterns, but they offer creative tips, and deep insight into the inner mysteries of Visio custom line patterns.

Here are the articles on John Goldsmith’s visLog:

Creating random custom line patterns - Part 1

Creating random custom line patterns - Part 2

The articles articles inspired me to create some whacky patterns. Here's the Dualing Browsers pattern:

And the Emotionally Unstable Barbed Wire pattern:

You can get these two odd-ball characters here: Download: Silly Custom Line Patterns.zip (35 KB)

In addition to all the great tips and insight, John has posted some resources that I dug out of my archives. Here’s a quick preview of some of the Visio custom line patterns that you can download from his articles:

If you need step-by-step information about creating custom line patterns from scratch, you might also want to head over to the on-line version of Developing Visio Solutions, which lives on MSDN.

This link will get you going: Chapter 10: Custom Patterns from Developing Visio Solutions.