Visio Guy 
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions about Visio and Visio Guy
WhWhat are the differences between Visio Professional and Visio Standard?
What are the differences between Visio versions?
- History of Visio
- What you won't find in Microsoft Office Visio 2003
- What's new in Microsoft Office Visio 2007
Some Visio Guy download files contain automation code in the form of VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) Macros. What should I know about macro security, how to run them, and how to examine the code?
How do I get text to resize with a shape? I want the font-size to grow and shrink along with the shape.
What is Shape Data? What happened to Custom Properties?
- Shape Data is the new name for Custom Properties, which are data fields that can be attached to Visio shapes. Custom Properties were renamed for Visio 2007. You can view the fields for a shape by going to the View > Shape Data Window or View > Custom Properties Window menu items.
Where can I ask more questions?
- Visit the Visio Guy Forum and post a question!
September 27th, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I need to disable the welcome screen for Visio. I’m working with the testing teams in Dynamics group. We are doing automation with batch jobs to install and test features in our products. I would guess there is a registry entry to disable to keep from getting the popup message?
Thanks for any help you can give,
Wes
October 19th, 2007 at 1:25 am
Hi Wes,
I think you’re talking about the “splash screen. I know that from the command line, you can use a /nologo option to suppress the pop-up. Perhaps you can use this.
Also, I found this link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/298736/EN-US/ regarding all the registry settings (for Visio 2002, probably haven’t change much) You can double-check that for a possible registry setting to suppress the splash screen. I didn’t find anything, though.
November 4th, 2007 at 7:17 am
Version 2002 / 2003
Dim vsoCommandBars As CommandBars
Dim vsoCommandBar As CommandBar
Set vsoCommandBars = Application.CommandBars
Set vsoCommandBar = vsoCommandBars.Item(”Page Tab”)
‘I was able to set the following to False, but now it refuses to set it back
to True
‘Delete Page
vsoCommandBar.Controls.Item(2).Enabled = True //Is ignored, no error thrown
‘Rename Page
vsoCommandBar.Controls.Item(3).Enabled = True
This I believe has either updated registry or some policy file, as now new
instances of Visio has Delete Page and Rename Page commands in the Page Tab
Menu as disabled. Do I have to reinstall Visio?
How do I enable them back as Global setting?
How do I disable these commands selectively for a Page:
I thought the following would work, but it applies it globally:
Set vsoCommandBars =
ActiveDocument.Pages(”XXX”History”).Application.CommandBars
vsoCommandBar.Controls.Item(2).Enabled = False
November 18th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
Good day, I have what may be a simple question. I am saving a Visio 2003 multiple page drawing as a web page, this web page includes the ctrl + click option for details view and a background.
When the web page is launched, the visio background image appears as a block surrounded by the default white page. I would like to have the background image cover the whole page and have edited some of the Visio generated web page files (Such as VLM1.HTML) with MS Frontpage but when I save the changes the ctrl + click and hyperlink options are no longer functional on the page.
Is there a way to edit Visio 2003 generated web page(s) without losing the ctrl + click and hyperlink functions?
Thanks alot for any help provided.
February 19th, 2008 at 3:08 am
Hi,
I am afraid this may be a stupid question, but I’ve often wondered why certain shapes in the Visio library have a number after them. For example, there is the Venn diagram and Venn diagram.2. This is the case for many, many other shapes.
Can you tell me what the motivation is or what’s the logic behind this number system? In most of the cases I’ve used I can’t tell the difference between the objects.
Curious,
-Paul
February 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Hi Paul,
In any given document, Master names are unique. So if you drag a master named “Bob” into a stencil, then drag some other master named “Bob”–from another source–into the same stencil, Visio will try to “unique-ify” the name by appending a number. Hence the “Bob.2″ naming.
This case can occur during development, where you modify a master several times. When you modify a master, it receives a new date-time stamp to distinguish it from older versions. Each time you drag the latest version of Bob into a document, Visio will append a number to it. If you open the Document stencil via File > Shapes > Show Document Stencil, test documents will often have many versions of a master!
I’ve glossed over many technical details here, but perhaps there’s enough hints to help you in your investigation!
Cheers,
- Chris
March 27th, 2008 at 8:04 am
First off i’d like to compliment you on a great site.
I’m working on a project for a company during my education and this site has suplied me with tons of information.
Im still having tree problems though and i whas hoping you could help out.
1)
I’m making PFD + P&ID drawings in Visio. The basic template just doesnt cover everything i need.
So after adding and altering all the shapes i need, i want to make an instrument listing.
The listing however should be able to recognize certain shapes are part of others.
So for example a valve, exists out of the valve, and endpoint sensors. The instrument listing should then show it like this:
Automated valve
Valve
End sensor
Right now ive fixed this by giving the shapes that contains the additional info (the child shapes) an extra field in with the user enteres the “parent” shape’s tag no. grouping the listing on tag no. will then give the desired effect but manual input of the parent shape is still required. I whas wondering if theres a more userfriendly way to make a listing show somewhat like i whant it to.
2)
My second question is, I want an external program to be able to fill in the revisions of my drawings (a pdm program handles this). What would be a good way to set up the title block so it can accept data from an external program? currently my titleblock gets its text from the propertyfield in the document. I whas wondering if there’s a standard way of doing this or if i should just try and get the software to write the data to the document properties
3)
I have 2 pages per document, one for the PFD and one for the P&ID. I made macro’s so the users can easily change papersizes. Changing the papersize will also set the drawing background.
A part of the background is the title block. as mentioned above the title block gets its data from the document properties. What i want to do though is have both pages have seperate data in there titleblocks. Is there a way to make backgrounds display differently depending on what page is currently showing, or even better change depending on what page they are a background of.
Any help would be greatly apreciated,
Lars-Erik
Student, the Netherlands
March 31st, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Hi Lars,
Are you using your own custom code, or trying to get this all done with built-in features?
1. With code, you can get the id of a parent shape like this: id = shp.ContainingShape.ID But through the Visio UI, I don’t know that there’s a real easy way to do this.
2. Visio has the DataBase Wizard, which allows you to hook Shape Data fields to external data sources. That might work for your Title Block.
In solutions I have built, I have compressed all title-block info into a single delimited string, ie: User.TbInfo = “Bob Bobson;2008.03.31;My P&ID Drawing;ACME Inc”, etc. Then the individual title-block elements can refer to this info like this:
text_field_name = INDEX(0,Sheet.5!User.TbInfo)
text_field_company = INDEX(3,Sheet.5!User.TbInfo)
Where Sheet.5 is the group’s id.
3. If you set up a field in a background page, for example, to show page numbers (ie: 1 of 3, 2 of 3, etc), then the foreground pages will show a different value. Unfortunately, I haven’t found a way to harness and customize this behavior. That would really be cool! I usually end up splitting the Title Block into the “background bits” that never change, and the “foreground bits” that do change. The foreground stuff usually ends up on a locked layer, so the user doesn’t accidentally select and mess-up the Title Block info.
Hope this helps!
- Chris
April 1st, 2008 at 7:34 am
Thanks for the response,
1)
Currently im trying to get this listing using the build-in features.
I’ve got a nice listing now, restricted to 1 depth (using grouping). I suppose they will have to life with the restrictions. Its a big step forward compared to the manual typing of listings in excel (the horror this must cause when changes are made in the drawing)
I havent found a way to code a listing. Is there a way to export data from Visio drawings to, for example, excel using VB code? (probably posbile seeing as they both work well with VB, im just afraid it might be abit to advanced for me)
2)
The index function works nice, ill recomend this to the developers of the PDM software and ask if they are able to suply me the info in this manner. They were also trying to find a “standard” way of doing this so ill see what they come up with.
3)
Putting the blocks on the foreground brings along the hassle changing there location when the user changes the papersize. The great thing about having the blocks on the background is that they are automaticly placed in the right spot.(macro to change paper size also changes the background because the borders are different depending on the paper size.) I know its posible to make the “foreground bits” change location on papersize changes, but its still not as … clean.
I’ll put some more time into finding a solution for this problem and if i find one, ill get back to you.
Thanks for the help,
- Lars-Erik
April 1st, 2008 at 8:14 am
In the end it always turns out to be suprisingly easy!
Using the visio “field” option i figured out the option “=BKGPAGENAME()”
This will (no suprises here) display a sting with the backgroundpage name, if none exists it displays a string “no background”. After some googling i found the following function on the msdn site.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa224192(office.11).aspx
=PAGENAME()
When you add this function to a field on the background page, the backgroundpage name will be displayed. After attaching the background to a page though it will display the page, not the background, pagename!
Using this function I can then select either the PFD or the P&ID information that needs displaying.
I’m not going to dive in the code here ( ill post it on my site when i get the time ) but its fairly easy to use an if statement and your above mentioned index option to make it display the right text at the right time!
Hope this can be of use to you or anyone else. It’s atleast “really cool”
- Lars-Erik
April 9th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
[…] is a problem thats been bugging me for a while. After trying for a while, a response from VisioGuy got me on the right […]
April 11th, 2008 at 6:06 am
Hi,
Great site! I was hoping you could assist with what appears to be a simple problem, but I’m sure it’s more technically challenging. I create flow diagrams that are multi-page entities. These flows are grouped by page and in order to follow the process, I use hyperlinks to move between pages. The problem is, if I rearrange pages or rename them, as I often have to do because things change, it breaks all my hyperlinks. How can I get around this limitation?
April 15th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
how can i hyperlink to a file on a networked drive that the name changes everytime the file is updated. Example-we have a schedule on our networked drive that the department that updates it always changes the name of the schedule to the date it was updated. I’m required to show on a Visio Process chart I created, a shape with a hyperlink to this schedule. When the schedule updates, the name changes, I’ll lose my hyperlink. What can I do? Please help.
Frank
April 21st, 2008 at 6:38 pm
I am having difficulty assigning a string to the Value Column of a
User Defined Cell. I am trying to create a MACRO which will ask the
user to input text information into a form and then add that text to
the DOCUMENT level User Defined Cell (Value Column). I know the
column can take string because I can enter the text manually
(”string”). I am setting the value of the form’s text field to a
variable (As String) and then trying to set the cell’s formula to the
variable. I get a runtime error saying “#NAME?”. Here is my code:
Dim clienttext As String
Dim projecttext As String
Dim UndoScopeID1 As Long
clienttext = ClientTextBox.Text
projecttext = ProjectTextBox.Text
‘Insert row and enter data
UndoScopeID1 = Application.BeginUndoScope(”Insert Row”)
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.AddRow visSectionUser, 0,
visTagDefault
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 2,
visUserValue).FormulaForceU = “0″
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 2,
visUserPrompt).FormulaForceU = “”"”"”
Application.EndUndoScope UndoScopeID1, True
‘Client Name
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 2,
visUserValue).RowNameU = “ClientName”
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 2,
visUserValue).FormulaU = clienttext
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 2,
visUserPrompt).FormulaU = “”
‘Insert Row and enter data
UndoScopeID1 = Application.BeginUndoScope(”Insert Row”)
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.AddRow visSectionUser, 0,
visTagDefault
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 3,
visUserValue).FormulaForceU = “0″
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 3,
visUserPrompt).FormulaForceU = “”"”"”
Application.EndUndoScope UndoScopeID1, True
‘Project Name
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 3,
visUserValue).RowNameU = “ProjectName”
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 3,
visUserValue).FormulaU = projecttext
Application.ActiveWindow.Shape.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 3,
visUserPrompt).FormulaU = “”
Any ideas on how to get this to work?
April 21st, 2008 at 7:44 pm
Hi Jen,
You need extra quotes around strings that don’t evaluate to ShapeSheet formulas. It looks like you were getting close.
Since I can never remember if you need two, three or four quotes wrapped around a string, I like to break quote-stuff into discrete units, so I can see what I’m doing. Have a look at these examples:
shp.Cells("Prop.Name").FormulaU = Chr (34) & "Bob" & Chr (34)shp.Cells("Prop.Name").FormulaU = ControlChars.Tab & "Bob" & ControlChars.Tab
shp.CellsSRC(visSectionUser, 3, 0).FormulaU = Chr (34) & TextBox.Text & Chr (34)
The “ControlChars.Tab” stuff is from VB.NET. I wasn’t sure if you were using VBA or .NET.
I’m sure you’ll agree that this code is more readable than the quote-madness that one could get into.
Good luck!
- Chris
May 18th, 2008 at 1:09 am
Hi there
I have a problem with the first ‘paragraph’ in a page where the last line always has a huge before spacing. There are no abnormal settings however so I have no idea what is wrong.
Thanks in advance
May 18th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Hi Ap,
I’ve moved your question over to the Visio Guy Discussion Forums, in this thread:
http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=70.0
May 18th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Hi Folks,
I’ve closed comments to this page. You can ask questions over on the Visio Guy Discussion Forums.
Cheers,
- Chris