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You are here: Home / Archives for Formulas

Formulas

Understanding Arc-Resize Problems in Visio

April 28, 2008 By Visio Guy 9 Comments

Read Full ArticleIf you’ve ever drawn arcs in Visio, then grouped them together with other shapes, you may have noticed that they behave rather oddly on resizing. As you make the group bigger or smaller, the arcs may bow or squish in ways that you didn’t expect.

This problem arises because of the interaction style of the arc shapes, which is 1D. Visio has two interaction styles: 1D and 2D. They have to do with the green handles you see on the shape, and how you go about manipulating the shape with the mouse.

In this article, we’ll describe the difference between the two interaction styles, and explain how to correct resizing problems you might be encountering.

[Read more…] about Understanding Arc-Resize Problems in Visio

Filed Under: Code, Power User, ShapeSheet Tagged With: 1D, 2D, Code, Formulas, Geometry, ShapeSheet, Size & Position

Center-sizing Smart Shapes

April 15, 2008 By Visio Guy 6 Comments

Read Full ArticleVisio 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 unless I have totally missed something (which does occur occasionally), there is one feature that Visio could really use: the ability to resize shapes on-center.

[Read more…] about Center-sizing Smart Shapes

Filed Under: Illustration, Power User, Shapes, ShapeSheet Tagged With: Custom Properties, Formulas, Functions, Locking, Protection, Right-Click Actions, Shape Data, ShapeSheet, SmartShapes, Tracing

SmartShape Tutorial: Fading Trees

December 3, 2007 By Visio Guy 12 Comments

Read Full Article

Today’s post, like the Visio Guy web-site, is all about creating smart graphics.

We’re going to create an evergreen tree shape that fades as its size decreases. With this one single SmartShape you’ll be able to illustrate an entire forest-scene that fades into the mist. And you won’t have to format each tree individually.

You will learn how to cut Visio shapes into pieces and union the bits together to form new shapes. You’ll learn how to add parameters to shapes, and fill them with Excel-like ShapeSheet formulas create sophisticated graphical behavior. And you’ll create a context menu that resets the shape with a click of the mouse.

[Read more…] about SmartShape Tutorial: Fading Trees

Filed Under: Illustration, Seasonal, ShapeSheet Tagged With: Artistic Effects, Combining, Formulas, Geometry, Right-Click Actions, ShapeSheet, SmartShapes, Transparency, User-defined Cells, Winter

Visio Film Strip Shapes: Hurray for Hollywood!

September 25, 2007 By Visio Guy 7 Comments

Read Full ArticleMulti-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!

[Read more…] about Visio Film Strip Shapes: Hurray for Hollywood!

Filed Under: Shapes, ShapeSheet Tagged With: Data Graphics, Formulas, Icon Sets, Images, Multi-shapes, Right-Click Actions, ShapeSheet, SmartShapes, User-defined Cells

Off-center Radial Fill Effect

August 30, 2007 By Visio Guy 18 Comments

You may have noticed cool-looking, shiny ball shapes that pop-up now and again on Visio Guy. They have an attractive offset-radial fill effect, like the balls in the image on the left.

If you’ve played with Visio’s Fill Format dialog, you’ll know that good ol’ Fill Pattern Number 40 will give you a nice-looking radial fill, but there doesn’t seem to be a setting for getting it to be off-center. Well (once again) Visio Guy is here to show you how to work some black magic!

[Read more…] about Off-center Radial Fill Effect

Filed Under: Development, Shapes, ShapeSheet Tagged With: 3D, Artistic Effects, Combining Shapes, Fill Format, Formulas, Geometry, ShapeSheet, shiny, SmartShapes

Resize Text With Metafiles!

August 24, 2007 By Visio Guy 10 Comments

A common question from budding Visio SmartShape developers is: “How do I get my text to resize with the shape?” Well, there are a few typical responses to that question, but this article focuses on a very simple method that you can use for text that does not change. So if you’re building shapes with company logos, digital readouts, or something similar, then read on!

[Read more…] about Resize Text With Metafiles!

Filed Under: Power User, ShapeSheet Tagged With: Formulas, Functions, Metafiles, ShapeSheet, Text

Text Resizing with ShapeSheet Formulas

August 21, 2007 By Visio Guy 32 Comments

We see quite often in Visio’s newsgroups the question; “how do I get my font size to change with the size of my shape?” We’ll tackle that issue with some nifty ShapeSheet formulas, and a bit of philosophizing. So pull up a chair and a warm cup of coffee…

[Read more…] about Text Resizing with ShapeSheet Formulas

Filed Under: Development, ShapeSheet Tagged With: Formulas, Functions, ShapeSheet, Text

Map Distance Dimension Line

July 13, 2007 By Visio Guy 19 Comments

In this article, we share with you a dimension line SmartShape that can be calibrated to a scale on an imported image, and be subsequently used to measure distances in that space.

Since Visio is adept at importing images in a variety of formats, it can be a great time savings to start with an image as a background or basis for a diagram that you wish to produce. There are many scenarios where the imported art represents a scaled drawing, be it a map, a floor plan, or some other architectural drawing. [Read more…] about Map Distance Dimension Line

Filed Under: Add-ins & Tools, Maps & Geography, Shapes Tagged With: Dimension Lines, Formulas, Maps, Scale, ShapeSheet, SmartShapes, Tools

Month Math

July 10, 2007 By Visio Guy 4 Comments

An associate asked me the other day; “how do you add a number of months to a date?”

I thought this would be simple, because the ShapeSheet supports elapsed-time units in addition to date and time formats.

With elapsed-time, you can manipulate quantities of time, so the problem seemed fairly easy.

Well, not exactly… [Read more…] about Month Math

Filed Under: ShapeSheet Tagged With: Calendar, Custom Properties, Formulas, Functions, Shape Data, ShapeSheet

User-defined ShapeSheet Functions in Visio 2007

January 1, 2007 By Visio Guy 11 Comments

Happy New Year 2007 Visio Fans!

Not only does the new year bring hope, rebirth, and a chance to start anew, but also a new version of Visio. Yes folks, Visio 2007 will soon be on the shelves, and beneath the shrink-wrap and behind the registration cards you’ll find an exciting new feature for ShapeSheet developers: the ability to define your own ShapeSheet functions!

By defining your own functions, you can really reduce the clutter and repeated effort that can occur with complicated ShapeSheet functions.

[Read more…] about User-defined ShapeSheet Functions in Visio 2007

Filed Under: ShapeSheet Tagged With: Formulas, Functions, ShapeSheet

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