Development

USA States Map with Equal-sized States

September 4, 2015 By Visio Guy 2 Comments

The states in the USA are all over the map when it comes to total area (aka, “size”).

We all love data visualizations on maps, but the wide range of state sizes can distort visual messages.

Deleting Visio Shapes Programmatically

July 7, 2015 By Visio Guy 4 Comments

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.

How to Show the Developer Ribbon Tab (and Why)

June 19, 2015 By Visio Guy 7 Comments

Many of the tips and tricks that I talk about (or want to talk about) on this site require the Developer Ribbon Tab. Find out how to turn it on, and what good it will do you!

Visio Minions SmartShape Concept

June 16, 2015 By Visio Guy 5 Comments

Today I had the idea to make a Minions Visio SmartShape. I was primarily interested in controlling eye movement using ShapeSheet techniques.

As a responsible adult, I probably don’t (shouldn’t) have the time to finish it properly. But I thought I’d make this video to show off some capabilities and point out general concepts that might help to make useful SmartShapes.

ShapeSheet through the Ages

September 17, 2014 By Visio Guy 4 Comments

This week on the Visio History Channel…

If you enjoyed yesterday’s walk down memory lane, and you lean toward the technical/programmer side, then you might enjoy this fluff piece–a look at the evolution of the ShapeSheet.

3-Label Dynamic Connector: Input Methods

April 24, 2014 By Visio Guy 37 Comments

I’ve been working on a three-label, Visio dynamic connector and thought I’d share some of my design thoughts with you.

Fit All Pages to Window in a Visio Document

April 13, 2011 By Visio Guy 13 Comments

If you create Visio documents with lots of pages, you probably like to quickly flip through all of them to check for visual consistency.

But if each page has been zoomed or panned, it can be frustrating to have to click Fit to Window for each page.

But with a little macro code, you can make your life a lot easier!

Data-linking Problem with 64-Bit Visio

December 22, 2010 By Visio Guy 4 Comments

I ran into a problem linking Visio shapes to Excel data the other day. If you are running 64-bit versions of Windows and Microsoft Office, you might run into the same problem.