For quite some time now, I've wanted to create a Visio SmartShape of a proper, oval, comic-style Word Balloon shape.

But calculating the intersection of a triangular callout with the perimeter of an ellipse was too foreboding...

...UNTIL NOW!

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Relatives ask me now and again if That Visio software can help me make quilting patterns?. I start to answer Well, maybe... and then we get side-tracked by family gossip and questions about When ya moving home?, etc, so nothing ever comes of it.

Between my relative's inquiries and the decent traffic for the article: Visio for Fashion Design?, this seems to be a niche with more than passing interest.

On a recent trip to the Great Northwest and the Land of Microsoft, the sewing question arose yet again, but this time I had a large swath of fabric at my disposal.

The wheels in my head started turning...

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David Parker, of bVisual Ltd, has created a really cool map of the UK's counties and boroughs, and released it for download. Have a look at the article here: UK Counties and Boroughs Map Shapes for Visio.

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Vienna, Austria—As spring comes to the Danube river valley, the green in the hills isn’t the only sign of reprieve from the long, dark winter. Employees of Visio Guy, an internet-based firm, also sighed relief—and jumped for joy—as the final judgment in a bitter lawsuit came down.

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Well today, I just couldn't resist serving up a little Leap Friday fun.

As winter winds down, and we're all slacking before the weekend, a little period-piece about the one-time Visio Corporation seemed to be just what the doctor ordered.Yesterday, an old colleague's name popped up in my Inbox with a link to a photo of my very first marketing endeavor.

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Recently, Matt R asked about a Visio Bingo Template for his marketing team. I thought to myself, "Now there's a mission-critical application of Visio!"

Well actually, it was a ShapeSheet challenge. I wanted to make a card that allowed the user to randomly update the numbers, but without using any code.

The resulting bingo card shape is implemented entirely using the ShapeSheet. There's no VBA code behind the number generation, so you don't have to worry about any VBA Macro Security issues.

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I've been playing with Visio 2007's new Data Graphics features more and more lately, and have been getting all sorts of ideas for new Data Graphics to share with Visio Guy readers.

One day, I was staring at the Ratings Data Graphic Item that ships as one of Visio's standard Data Graphic elements...

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Visio 2003 has a defect in the LengthIU property of a Shape object. This article discusses the bug, describes a work-around, and offers Visual Basic code to help you get back on track!

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Back in October 2006, Visio Guy posted the Circular Multi-arrow Shapes that offer superior capabilities to the popular in-the-Visio-box version.

Well, David Van Hemel had already created a similar, flexible solution for PowerPoint users. Although he was happy to find our Visio-based offering, he thought that his PowerPoint tool would be useful to others, and he generously offered his solution for consumption by the smart-graphics-loving community.

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Well, we'd love to think that Visio Guy is your end-all resource for all-things Visio, but that would be...well...stupid. But since you're here already, we'd like to point you to a wonderful source of Visio information: Visio newsgroups!

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If you've used Visio's 2D glue capabilities, you'll know it's pretty neat. Not only can you glue shapes to one-another, but you can get them to snap to a direction as well! However, if you've tried to heavily exploit this feature, you might have run into some problems.

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If you are developing solutions for Visio, then you've probably dabbled with VB code in Visio's Visual Basic for Applications editor. If you've been in the industry as long as I have, then you know that VB means Visual Basic. Period. End of story. But if you happen to also be from Australia, then it's a different story...

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In your quest to create a Visio-based application you're not likely to find yourself stranded on a Visio-based-island. You'll probably find yourself strolling through a land filled with other software products that need to join you on your journey.

So if your wanderings take you through the towns of Access, Excel, Active Directory, SQL Server, MOM, Exchange, Reporting Services, or SharePoint, then you've stopped at the right place to get directions!

The good citizens at Visimation have authored eight -- that's E-I-G-H-T-! -- articles to guide you on your path towards integrating Visio with Microsoft technologies...

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Hello Visio Fans! I received a Visio Partner e-mail a few days ago that contains a fabulous set of links to Visio How-To demo videos. The demos cover new Visio 2007 topics such as DataGraphics, Themes, AutoConnect, PivotDiagrams and Vista integration.

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Well folks, this Visio Guy and his main squeeze have been busily preparing for a year abroad, where we'll be sharing our Visio knowledge with you from exotic locations such as Fiji, New Zealand, Australia and Asia. Now you can understand why we'be been preparing all those Geographic Map Drawings!

With all this stress of packing, preparation, and the wrapping-up of projects, we're seriuosly due for some humor. And when you are a Visio Guy, nothing says "laugh" like a good flowchart!

Mr. Brian Briggs over at BBSpot.com has created this hilarious Windows Vista Upgrade Decision Flowchart. We're crossing our fingers that he's created it with Visio...perhaps even with Visio 2007...and on a freshly installed Vista workstation to boot. Not only would that make this masterpiece more pertinent to our website, but it would somehow throw some irony onto his sarcastic bonfire!

This chart is currently only available in .pdf or .jpg format, but we've made a call to the creator for some historic background, and if we're lucky, maybe the original .vsd!

View: Windows Vista Upgrade Decision Flowchart

Edit: I've committed heresy! The BBSpot guys said the flowchart was created with SmartDraw!

So Visio 2007 has been released, and...well...I'd love to say that I've been pounding the pavement, doing a ton of research, and have dug up the latest scoop, but the guys over at Visio Insights have written a nice post entitled: What's so great about Visio 2007? that anyone'd be hard pressed to beat.

There's some nice screenshots of the new datagraphics and pivot charts that are available in the new version, as well as links to Visio 2007 new-feature videos and other online resources. So go on over and have a look, and tell 'em Visio Guy sent you!

Arno Nel has published links to a really cool set of Visio drawings that relate to Microsoft SharePoint on his blog: Arno Nel 2.0 - The Information Worker. The diagrams illustrate models, scenarios, and flowcharts for planning, designing and deploying SharePoint installations.

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Perhaps you have noticed that this web site is mainly devoted to custom Visio shapes and information about developing Visio solutions. But if you've seen the Snowflake Generator or the CD Jewel Case Template, you know that we're not just about work and no play.

I've created a new Visio Art Page. You can find a link to it at the top of every page on this site, as it is now a standing feature of Visio Guy. Hope you enjoy!

I'm getting more and more questions daily about the soon-to-be-released Microsoft Office Visio 2007. Evidently, the final bits for the Office 2007 system have been released to manufacturing, but the products won't be available 'til early 2007.
For now, however you can play with beta 2, and check out the latest Visio 2007 product information in the following paragraphs...
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There has been a lot of buzz in the newsgroups about Save As Web hyperlinks not functioning correctly when exporting from Visio 2003 and viewing in Internet Explorer 7. Evidently the problem is only for Visio 2003 and IE7, and when the export uses VML as it's output.

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There are a lot of Visio users out there, and not all of them use Visio in conjuction with AutoCAD. But for those who do; Boy! Do they use AutoCAD!! And when there's a problem using them in conjunction with each other; Boy! Is there a problem!!

This page will try to bring together as many resources regarding Visio and AutoCAD issues as is humanly possible. I'll keep updating it as new information comes in, so check back from time to time!

On a positive note, it looks like the AutoCAD compatibility in Visio 2007 is vastly improved! One of the experts on the subject has informed me that beta 2 of Visio 12 has solved many of the issues from previous versions of Visio.

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While it is possible to create good looking graphics with Visio, it was not designed to be an illustration tool. That doesn't seem to stop nuts like me from trying to use it as one! But let's just say that in my quest to create beauty, I occasionally miss the advanced tool or two.

One such example is the skew tool. With a skew tool you could, for example, easily draw nice rectilinear shapes, such as these dice faces...

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