Visio Guy

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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Multi-shape capability is one of the qualities that make Visio SmartShapes something special. A single shape can alter its appearance at the click of a context-menu, or the change of a data value.

While Visio shapes are often vector based, you can also create Visio multi-shapes using images. Using the simple panning-and-cropping technique described in this article will help you to quickly build efficient image-based Visio multi-shapes! So if you have a set of icons just aching to become a SmartShape, read on!

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If you are using Microsoft Forefront Client Security, and are documenting it in your Visio network diagrams, or if you dig Visio's new Data Graphics features, or simply like brightly-colored, shiny new Visio shapes and then we've got an article and a download for you!

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Visio 2007 has many cool new features, and among the coolest are Data Linking and Data Graphics. These data features allow shapes to link to data-sources and graphically react to it. You can also add Data Callouts as adornments to existing shapes. The callouts display data next to a shape without visually changing the actual shape.

Of course, if you're a Visio Guy like me, you won't be content to sit back and use the pre-built Data Graphics supplied by The Man. You'll want to roll up your sleeves and create your own, thank you very much.

So I've scoured the net to find resources that contain the nitty-gritties about Data Graphics. Have a look, and stay up all night!

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This morning I was thumbing through one of Edward R. Tufte's books, and I got this idea for a "12-month bar shape" -- a shape that shows vertical bars for each month of the year, in a compact, easy-to-read format. My original thought was that it would make a perfect Visio 2007 Data Graphic!

So, without thinking, planning, or researching, I plunged ahead creating the details of the shape, and then realized that making a Data Graphic is more complicated than I thought. Ugh!

Nevertheless, I've created a shape, which displays bar-graphics for 12 months of the year, and which links to external data. Perhaps you'll find it useful!

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