Text Along a Connector’s Path in Microsoft Visio 2010
February 9, 2010 – 8:46 am | One Comment | 1269 views

A feature lacking in Visio, like for-EVER, is the ability to align text along a connector’s path.
Now, Visio 2010’s new ShapeSheet functions and capabilities finally deliver.
Today we’ll show-off the cool new connector that I’ve developed …

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Faking 3D in Visio
December 10, 2009 – 5:25 pm | 5 Comments | 3000 views
Faking 3D in Visio

In this Visio Tutorial, you’ll learn how to use drawing tools to create a 3D effect of an arrow poking through a 3D plane!

Visio Tutorial: Advanced Fill Effects
September 9, 2009 – 4:10 pm | 5 Comments | 3899 views
Visio Tutorial: Advanced Fill Effects

Learn two methods for creating sophisticated fill patterns for your Visio shapes!

Visio Spectrum Shape
September 2, 2009 – 3:18 pm | 4 Comments | 3107 views
Visio Spectrum Shape

A rainbow spectrum can really liven-up a diagram and clarify a point that you are trying to make.
Whether you are trying to illustrate a broad band of choices or options, talking about a range of …

Twitter @WordCloud #Visio
June 30, 2009 – 9:04 am | No Comment | 7924 views
Twitter @WordCloud #Visio

We want word clouds too! Here’s a first step towards getting them in Visio.

User Experience Shapes From UserFocus
June 19, 2009 – 12:06 pm | 5 Comments | 8051 views
User Experience Shapes From UserFocus

Get a cool, free Visio stencil full of people, office and document shapes for illustrating your ux research plan and process.

Run Circles Around Your Text With the Circle-text Title SmartShape
March 27, 2009 – 8:00 am | 3 Comments | 4795 views
Run Circles Around Your Text With the Circle-text Title SmartShape

The other day, I visited one of my favorite coffee houses in Munich: Aran. While sipping my mocha, the logo on the cup gave me the idea for a Visio SmartShape:
A title shape that automatically …

Super Mask Visio Clipping Shape
November 28, 2008 – 4:39 pm | 9 Comments | 5438 views
Super Mask Visio Clipping Shape

Download a Visio SmartShape that allows you to mask/clip your drawings and diagrams. You can temporarily highlight just a particular portion of the drawing without being distracted by the rest of the details.

Hexagonal Custom Fill Pattern
September 9, 2008 – 11:27 pm | One Comment | 6339 views
Hexagonal Custom Fill Pattern

A recent Visio Guy forum post asked about a creating a hexagonal grids. The poster wanted to create some new Visio network shapes that show-off the groovy new hexagonal ventilation grids that you see on …

‘Indexed’ Shapes – for that Hand-drawn Look
August 20, 2008 – 10:33 am | 11 Comments | 10706 views
‘Indexed’ Shapes – for that Hand-drawn Look

Create charts and graphs that have a hand-drawn look using this interesting set of Visio SmartShapes!

European Cup 2008 Country-Flag Visio Shapes
June 1, 2008 – 11:04 pm | 3 Comments | 14527 views
European Cup 2008 Country-Flag Visio Shapes

We’ve created sixteen Visio shapes that combine individual country-outlines with corresponding national flags. Whether you are sprucing up an Euro Cup 2008 related diagram, or creating other geographically related diagrams, be sure and get these shapes!

Word Balloon Visio SmartShape
May 29, 2008 – 7:47 am | 12 Comments | 14832 views
Word Balloon Visio SmartShape

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 …

Center-sizing Smart Shapes
April 15, 2008 – 6:01 am | 4 Comments | 10330 views
Center-sizing Smart Shapes

Visio has tons of keyboard shortcuts, including modifiers for constraining the resizing and moving of shapes. For instance, with the Shift key depressed, you can constrain a shape to move only vertically or horizontally. Neat-o!
But …

Lens Flare & Highlight Shapes – Bling Bling!
April 6, 2008 – 9:55 pm | 2 Comments | 7682 views
Lens Flare & Highlight Shapes – Bling Bling!

Welcome to this month’s issue of Pimp My Visio Shapes! (*cough*)
I’ve come up with some shapes that will allow you to add lighting effects such as lens flares, star-highlights, and other shininess-enhancing effects to your …

How to Draw Glass in Visio
March 18, 2008 – 6:31 pm | 11 Comments | 13242 views
How to Draw Glass in Visio

Learn how to create see-through, shiny glass effects using basic, end-user features of Visio!

How Many Fill Colors Can You Put on a Visio Shape?
March 4, 2008 – 5:15 pm | 10 Comments | 7293 views
How Many Fill Colors Can You Put on a Visio Shape?

Learn how to apply four colors to a single shape, make use of advanced gradient and transparency techniques, and download a shape that does it all!

Release the Power of Visio Custom Line Patterns
March 3, 2008 – 10:52 pm | 2 Comments | 7959 views
Release the Power of Visio Custom Line Patterns

Follow links to two excellent articles about creating your own Visio Custom Line Patterns, as well as download some fun patterns created just for you!

Circular Text Generator (version 2)
January 5, 2008 – 8:14 pm | 24 Comments | 19135 views
Circular Text Generator (version 2)

Getting text on a circle in Visio was always a pain until the Circular Text Generator (version 1) appeared on Visio Guy. V1 was evidently a big hit, but you wanted more! Version 2 adds …

SmartShape Tutorial: Fading Trees
December 3, 2007 – 8:51 pm | 7 Comments | 9513 views
SmartShape Tutorial: Fading Trees

Learn how to create interesting visual effects while uncovering the capabilities of Visio’s ShapeSheet and the Smart Shapes it enables you to create. This article shows you how to create a wintry scene with Smart Trees that fade into the distance as you reduce their size.

Circular Text Generator (version 1)
October 18, 2007 – 5:28 pm | 29 Comments | 17707 views
Circular Text Generator (version 1)

Finally, you can add text to a circle inside of Visio! This is first version of a series of tools to help you get your Visio text out-of-line!