Showing posts with label Visio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Visio. Show all posts

Sunday, November 3, 2013

Register now for November 5 webcast: Use Project with Visio to boost project management efficiency

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Microsoft Visio webcast series

Join us Tuesday, November 5 at 10:30am PT/1:30pm ET to learn how to enhance the power of Project by using Visio at the same time. Whether you're a project manager, team member or stakeholder, this 90-minute session will show you an easy way to communicate, visualize and share data across the enterprise.

You'll learn how to use the Visio 2013 project scheduler template to create linear timelines with milestones, interval markers and extended timelines and then export them to Project. Plus, you'll see the custom shape data reports, data graphics, legends, and stencils in Visio, and using the Visio data pivot diagrams in Project, you'll learn to create graphical project reports.

Register here for our free Visio webcast series to attend this session.

Presenter: Matt Roderman, Tips & Techniques LLC

To see the complete Visio webcast series agenda, go to aka.ms/VisioWebcastSeries.

To see the complete Project webcast series agenda, go to aka.ms/ProjectWebcastSeries.


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Thursday, July 11, 2013

Webinar: Get started with Visio

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SUMMARY_15MinWebinar_300x166The webinar is over. Check back in a few days to see the recording or go to http://aka.ms/offweb for more information on how to join the series.

Learn about Visio, a program designed to help you make diagrams for flowcharts, room layouts, timelines, organizational charts and a lot more. We’ll start at the key of Visio: understanding how its shapes work.

What you will learn at Tuesday's webinar

How to get shapes, either from the Visio program or by downloading themThe difference between 1-D shapes and 2-D shapes How to connect shapes How to work with text in Visio

References for this webinar

--Doug Thomas


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Saturday, April 6, 2013

Webinar: Organization charts in PowerPoint and Visio

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Need to create an org chart? Unsure of whether to use PowerPoint or Visio? In this week's webinar, we'll show you both ways and the advantages of each depending on your audience, plus we'll share tips and best practices for creating organization charts. A video of the webinar will be posted shortly after the webinar.

What you will learn at Tuesday's webinar

How to decide between using PowerPoint or Visio How to make an org chart in PowerPoint (or any Office program really) How to make an org chart in Visio

References for this webinar

Learn how to join us each week or watch previous webinars at http://aka.ms/offweb.

--Doug Thomas


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Introducing the new Visio Web site

We have to receive the new Visio, including the great feedback from "early adopters" around the ease of use improvements and the ability to simultaneously in a single diagram as a team work appreciated.

A feedback we have heard loud and clear just recently, it would be great having a single place for information about the new Visio is.

And here it is: the New Visio Web site - your complete source for information about the new Visio, including top features output descriptions and information about the purchase.

visio site

Visio is available now as another product of the Office 365 product family. For Office 365 offers the same functionality as Visio Professional subscription and Visio Pro, so it is to buy part of Office 365.

Thank to a strong version of Visio customers, partners and most valuable professionals for feedback during product development, contributed. Please note the feedback coming – the Visio team welcomes and reviews all of your comments! Subscribe you our RSS feed in your favorite reader (E.g. Outlook off) to be notified of new posts.


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Recapping posts on the new Visio

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written by Aftab Alam

Over the last few months, we’ve been posting about the new Visio – discussing features in depth and introducing the editions that will be available. Before we get started on a new series of posts, we thought it would be helpful to summarize our existing content – while the material was written for the Visio Customer Preview, it applies to the released version well. Also, we'd love to hear you response in the comments -- whether there are posts you absolutely love, certain topics you'd like to hear more about, or just how much you're thrilled with the new Visio!

We’ve loosely organized the posts in a few areas, but most span multiple topics, so please take our categorization as only a starting point:


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Tuesday, February 19, 2013

The new Visio editions

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The new Visio will have three editions: Microsoft Visio Standard 2013, Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 and Microsoft Visio Pro for Office 365.

Many of the improvements and new features in the new Visio are available across all editions, but Visio Professional and Visio Pro for Office 365 contain some additional functionality when compared to Visio Standard.

Microsoft Visio Standard 2013 is designed for people looking for a powerful diagraming platform with a rich set of built-in stencils. It helps simplify complex information through simple and easy-to-understand diagrams. Visio Standard includes stencils for business diagrams, organization charts, basic flowcharts and general multi-purpose diagrams.

Microsoft Visio Professional 2013 makes it easier than ever for individuals and teams to create and share professional, versatile diagrams that simplify complex information. It includes all of the functionality of Visio Standard 2013 as well as updated shapes and templates; enhanced support for team collaboration, including the ability for several people to work on a single diagram at the same time; and the ability to link diagrams to data. Visio Professional 2013 includes all of the rich stencils in Visio Standard 2013, and adds additional stencils for business and engineering diagrams, process diagrams (including BPMN 2.0), maps and floor plans, network diagrams, and software and database diagrams.

Microsoft Visio Pro for Office 365, available as a subscription through Microsoft Office 365, includes the same features, stencils and shapes as in Visio Professional 2013. In addition, it allows each user to install Visio on up to five PCs running Windows 7 or Windows 8. It also adds Visio on Demand, which lets users temporarily install Visio on kiosk computers, and it automatically installs the latest feature and security updates for the duration of the subscription.

The main functionality differences between the three editions are summarized in the table below. As always, if you have any questions about the differences between the new Visio editions, please let us know in the comments below.

Microsoft Visio 2013 editions table

--Ian Mikutel, Program Manager, Visio Team


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Monday, December 31, 2012

VSDX: the new Visio file format

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Drawing, Stencil and Template file formatsVisio 2003, 2007 and 2010 all had the same primary Visio Drawing (VSD) file format. For most users, this was great: files could be shared easily between these three versions of Visio.

There were, however, some drawbacks. Most notably, the primary format was binary, which limited both the information stored in the file and how easily IT professionals and developers could work with it. For example, it was difficult for third parties to access and extract data from the binary format for use outside of Visio.

For the new Visio, we introduced an XML-based file format to provide new capabilities in Visio and improve interoperability with other applications. 

The new file format allows us to provide a number of new features, such as co-authoring and the ability to view your diagrams natively in the browser using Visio Services in the new Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft SharePoint Online in Microsoft Office 365. 

It also gives us a chance to create a single unified file format that replaces the secondary file formats that Visio has created over the years. In Visio 2010, we introduced two formats: the Visio Web Drawing (VDW) and Visio Workflow Interchange (VWI) formats. In addition, we also supported a Visio XML Drawing format (VDX) so developers could modify the contents of a file outside Visio. The new format encompasses the benefits and capabilities provided by all three of these formats.

In addition, the new format gives us the ability to address many of the requests being made by our IT professional and developer community.

File size: The new format is compressed and can produce substantially smaller file sizes--up to 75 percent smaller than comparable binary documents. This reduces the disk space required to store files and the bandwidth required to transport files through e-mail, over networks, and across the Web.Security: XML-based formats are more secure and transparent, because they store data in a standard structure that makes it easier for applications to detect security issues. We also use a separate file extension for files with executable macro code, so you can be sure that macro-free files do not contain harmful code.Data recovery: The new format improves data recovery by segmenting and separately storing different components within the file. Although rare, network or storage failures can cause document corruption and the new file format makes it easier to recover your data in these cases.

Interoperability: It is now much easier to work with the default file format outside of Visio: you can now enable any application that supports XML to access, extract, and repurpose the data using familiar development tools.

Visio has three principal types of files: drawings, templates, and stencils. These file types are still available in the new format, with one difference: like the other Office applications, we now offer macro-free and macro-enabled formats. The new extensions for each file type are listed in the table below.

For people who have used previous versions of Visio, we know that you have existing diagrams that you’ll want to be able to use in the new Visio. You may also want to share your new Visio files with others who are still using previous versions of Visio. There are several options for ensuring file compatibility.

When you open one of your existing Visio 2003-2010 drawings in the new Visio, your file will be in Compatibility Mode (indicated by “[Compatibility Mode]” following the file name at the top of the application window). Compatibility Mode means that some new commands and capabilities, such as new themes, variants, and styles, as well as co-authoring, will be disabled.

Compatibility mode

When you are in Compatibility Mode, you can make changes to your VSD drawings freely without having to worry about adding features or functionality that will not be supported when the file is opened in a previous version of Visio. Features only supported in the new Visio are disabled until you convert to the new file format.

To convert your Visio 2003-2010 drawing to the new file format, simply go to the File menu and, on the Info tab, click the Convert button. Once your file is in the new format, you will be able to work with all the new Visio features, including new themes, variants, and styles and co-authoring.

You can also save new drawings back to the Visio 2003-2010 drawing format. When you save your file in the VSD file format, the new Visio presents a list of features that will be down-converted. This gives you the option to continue with the save or cancel (if you don’t want to lose those features). Once your file is saved to the earlier format, your view of the file in the new Visio will be the same as what users will see in previous versions of Visio.

Office 2007 introduced new XML-based file formats for Microsoft Office Excel 2007, Office Word 2007, and Office PowerPoint 2007. Their file formats were the combination of a ZIP archive package and mainly XML content. Given the success of these formats, we decided to move in the same direction.

Microsoft Office file formats

You can think of the new VSDX format as being composed of two concepts: a ZIP archive package and XML content. First, we used the same ZIP archive package as used in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Formally, this package is defined by the Open Packaging Conventions (ISO/IEC 29500-2:2008) standard. Second, we based the XML content on our existing Visio XML Drawing (VDX) format.

Visio file format

For those familiar with the VDX format, we did make some changes and these are explained here. Also, note that some components like images, macros, and specific embedded objects are still stored as binary.

Since the new file format package is a ZIP archive, you can change the file extension to ZIP and peek inside. You will find many smaller components, or parts, that define different pieces of the file. For example, each page has its own part, and each master shape has its own part. This makes it easier to modify separate components of the file outside of Visio and also reduces the risk that a corrupt component will corrupt the entire file.

The following diagram (built with the new Organization Chart shapes) shows how a very basic diagram with one page and one master is stored hierarchically in the ZIP archive.

Structure of a Visio file

More details about the file format structure can be found in our Introduction to the Visio 2013 file format (.vsdx) article for developers.

Visio has a number of MVPs who share their passion, technical expertise, and real-world knowledge of Visio with others. They are already talking and sharing their knowledge about the new file format:

We’re working hard to put together reference material for developers who want to work with the new Visio file format outside of Visio. Here are two references already posted:

The new file format is beneficial to both everyday users and developers. Not only does it support a range of new Visio features, but it decreases file sizes, reduces security concerns, makes data recovery easier and provides great interoperability with other applications. We've already heard from developers that they are excited about the new file format, since it enables a wide range of new Visio integration scenarios.

Whether you are transitioning well to the new file format or running into issues, we would love to hear your stories. Feel free to leave comments, discuss the new Visio on our forums (Visio Answers forum and Visio MSDN forum) or send us feedback using Send a Smile or Send a Frown.

Thanks for reading!


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Exchange diagrams with Visio services

Visio Services on a phoneThe new Visio offers a number of new features - the modern look of the app, new topics and forms for professional-looking charts, new ways of cooperation with several authors and lecturers. We have also much easier, these diagrams with colleagues and friends - share made even if they don't have Visio. Visio services comes in. Visio services can share stunning you diagrams by using SharePoint or Office 365 with up to the minute data.

Visio services is a part of Microsoft SharePoint and O365, which offers you a quick and easy way to consume Visio diagrams. You must have - saved no Visio client required only a Visio document in SharePoint and a browser. We present the diagram with the same fidelity of the Visio client, including your themes, and cool effects. Visio 2010 users will remember that charts in a special Web format had to be published (.)(VDW) for display. No more! Visio services works with the new native Visio file format (.)(VSDX) is so that each document in SharePoint stored displayed - no release required. (Support your existing Visio services).VDW-Dateien.)

Visio Full Page web access

A big reason for your diagrams with others is to share, to get you feedback. With Visio services, your reviewers can add comments to the chart - as well as all other comments. In fact you need to commented on the chart with the Visio client and the people who comment on at the same time in the browser. Collaboration blog article for more details on the new comment and find collaboration features in Visio and Visio services.

Comments in Visio Services

The information in Visio diagrams is not always static. You can see a chart with a variety of data sources, dynamic information in a Visual context connect. Visio services can update the data and update the shapes in the diagram that are associated with data.

Embedded Visio Services web part

You can integrate even charts in rich dashboards or larger SharePoint solutions. Below is an example of a site for a residence hall of the University. Visio diagrams will give in this website details of upcoming residence hall events and up-to-date information on the residence facilities embedded. Diagrams are also in document libraries for easy access to view in the browser or edit in Visio.

SharePoint site with Visio Services web parts

Because Visio services through your browser, you can it with a variety of devices - desktops, notebooks, mobile phones or tablets. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, chrome and Safari, enter on the platform of your choice to access. We have added also improvements for touch and mobile devices with smaller screens.

Well, you know what Visio services everything turns, why you yourself not try it? Visio services is part of SharePoint and SharePoint online with Office 365. You can see 365 to get preview, fall a trial Office some Visio diagrams in a SharePoint document library, and then Visio services in action. For starters, we have added some Visio files to this article. Here is what you need to do:

Sign up for the Office 365 Enterprise previewin Office 365 preview Admin Center, you can navigate to the SharePoint sites by clicking on the button sites in the blue Header.Gehen the team Web site a Visio diagram on the Dokumentgruppe upload, by clicking "new document" > display a Visio diagram in the collection of documents in the Web browser click on "Existing file upload" (you can include the file in this zip download)

Check this Office preview getting started guidefor more information and resources about the Office 365 preview out.

Visio services is a way to share modern charts with the latest business information across the organization. It is a great addition to Visio and SharePoint.


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Sunday, December 30, 2012

10 ways to be more efficient in the new Visio

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Whiteboard drawingThe new Visio has a variety of improvements designed to make your diagramming experience easier and more fluid. Below is a list of 10 new ways you can be more efficient in the new Visio. Give them a try the next time you create a diagram and see how much time you save.

If you don't yet have the Visio Preview, you can find instructions for getting the preview here so that you can try the changes out for yourself. 

The ability to duplicate a page has been one of Visio's most requested features, and we're happy to announce it is now possible in the new Visio. Duplicate page provides you a fast and easy method, consistent with other Office apps like Excel, to copy not just shapes but also page properties from one page to another.

To use Duplicate page, simply right click the page you'd like to duplicate, and click "Duplicate". The new duplicated page will be created and placed next to your original page.

Visio duplicate page

You can also access Duplicate page by going to the Insert tab, and selecting "Duplicate This Page" from the New Page dropdown menu.

The new Visio introduces a "Change Shape" feature that enables you to swap out a selected shape or group of shapes in the drawing with another type of shape. The new shapes retain the position, connections, formatting, shape text, and/or shape data of the originals.

For example, let's say you've created the following simple flowchart:

Visio change shape

However, your coworker noticed you used the wrong shape for the "Make a decision" step. Using Change Shape, you can swap the Process shape to a Decision shape with a single click. Just right-click the shape you want to change, select the Change Shape icon from the floatie, and choose the shape you want to replace with from the gallery provided. Hovering over shapes in the gallery will provide you with a live preview of the change so you can decide if it's what you want before you click.

Visio change shape

Visio change shape

To learn more about this new feature, check out our Change shapes in Visio 2013 post.

You now have a quick and easy way to make one shape the same size as another using dynamic grid. When you resize a shape (select the shape, then click and drag the white resize handles), matching dimensions found between shapes in your current view will be shown as green line segment overlays.

When you resize on one axis (e.g. just resizing the shape's width), only matching dimensions on the same axis are shown. When resizing on two axes, both matching dimensions for width and height are displayed. Guides showing equal width will show up at the bottom of all the shapes, while guides showing equal height will appear on the right side of all the shapes.  

Visio matching shape dimensions dynamic grid

Ever find yourself needing more precise control of a shape's position? Holding down the Alt key while dragging a shape to move, rotate, or resize will suspend all forms of snapping, simulating the behavior if all checkboxes in the "Viewà Visual Aidsà Snap to" list were unchecked and giving you finer control over your shape's position.

Alt+drag applies to 1D and 2D shapes, as well as multi-shape selections. It also applies to connectors, but they will still snap to glue targets.

Alt+drag also works in combination with Ctrl and Shift modifier keys for drag actions.

Move Alt+Shift+Drag: non-snapping move in one directionAlt+Ctrl+Drag: non-snapping copyResize Alt+Shift+Drag side handle: non-snapping "resize from center"Alt+Shift+Drag corner handle: non-snapping "resize in both dimensions"

The new Visio makes it easier for you to browse stencils and shapes through an improved More Shapes menu. Two main improvements have been made to accomplish this:

Open for exploration

The More Shapes browse menu now stays open after you open a stencil, great for when you're not sure what stencil you need and you want to explore. We anticipate this will cause you to open more stencils, which could clutter your shapes window. To handle that, the new Visio also displays a checkmark next to stencils you have open and allows you to quickly open/close a stencil with a single click-keeping your stencil window organized as you explore. 

Visio More Shapes browse menu

Filter for current drawing's units

Note: only affects US (and Canadian) users.

The More Shapes browse menu now filters its results based on your current drawing's unit selection, ensuring you choose a stencil with the correct units, resulting in shapes that look and behave great on your page. If your document is US, you will only see US stencils, and vice versa.

If you copy a shape and then paste it to another portion of your diagram where the original shape isn't in view anymore, Visio will now paste that shape into the center of your current view. When you need to paste a shape to a distant location on your diagram, this feature is a time saver.

Dynamic glue frequently yields better-looking and lower-maintenance diagrams, and the new Visio has made the feature more discoverable for you by increasing the hit region to 100% of the shape's bounding box, while still allowing static glue hit regions to take precedence.

Visio improved dynamic glue

This change means you don't need to be as precise when dragging a connector to a shape, allowing you to work more efficiently.

We've made it easier for you to add shapes, too. The Auto-Connect arrows, which allow you to quickly add or connect shapes, have been updated to be more responsive.

Visio Autoconnect hints sleep awake mode

When you've been using them they show up quickly (awake mode), but when you haven't used them for a while, there is a delay before they pop up so they won't get in your way (sleep mode).

This lets you build up a connected diagram without ever moving your mouse away from your diagram.

Dynamic grid guides now appear instantly, making it even faster for you to position a shape in relation to other shapes on the page.

To see the dynamic grid in action, simply drop a shape next to another shape and notice the green lines that automatically appear:

Visio faster dynamic grid guides

Now when you resize a shape, matching edges of other shapes will be shown to you as a line segment overlay via dynamic grid. This makes it even easier to make two shapes the same size.

Visio dynamic grid resize to alignment line

Notice how the center guide appears while resizing the bottom edge (above) and the bottom guide appears while resizing the bottom edge (below). 

Dynamic grid: Resize to alignment line

While we couldn't possibly list every improvement we've made to the new Visio's user interface, we hope this list gave you an overview and insight into some of the noteworthy changes that were made. We understand sometimes it's the little things that make all the difference, and hope our changes will provide you a with more efficient diagramming experience than ever before

Have your own favorite tip for saving time while diagramming in Visio? Let us and others know by sharing it below in the comments!


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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

The new Visio

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Visio iconThis blog post is brought to you by Judy Lew, Group Program Manager for the Visio team.

Last week Microsoft announced that the customer preview of the new Microsoft Office is available for the public to download. At the same time, we released a preview of the new Microsoft Visio, which allows you to try out the new Visio and use all of the improvements for yourself. We’re very excited to share the new Visio with you and will use this Blog to explain new Visio features and improvements.

 In this post, we wanted to give you a brief introduction into what you’ll see in the Visio Preview.

It’s easy to make great-looking diagrams using just the out-of-the-box settings. New themes and formatting options mean you don’t have to be a designer to create diagrams that look professional and beautiful. Each theme combines colors, fonts, and effects to give great, unified look. You can also tune each theme using one of four variants to customize it even further. New Quick Styles, improved formatting options, and all new shape effects give you the power to control every aspect of a diagram so anyone can produce great looking results.

Themed network shapes

Over two hundred shapes are totally new or completely reworked and we’ve updated hundreds of the popular shapes so you can make more modern, compelling diagrams. Some of these shapes give you more variety or a different alternative to existing shapes. Others are completely new, opening up new diagram possibilities. All of them take full advantage of the new themes to make your diagrams look gorgeous. In addition, we’ve added new templates and reworked several existing ones to give you more diagramming options.

 Organization Chart shapes 

Diagrams don’t exist in a vacuum and often you want to work with others or to get input on your work. An all-new commenting model and support for multiple authors editing simultaneously make it easy to collaborate on diagrams. And if you need to get feedback from a coworker who doesn’t have Visio? No problem. You can view and add comments to any diagram using just Visio Services.

Commenting in Visio

When you first launch Visio you’ll see that a lot has changed for this version. We’ve updated the workspace to make it cleaner and easier to use, and added new features to help you create great-looking diagrams quickly.

Visio application window

We’ve introduced a new XML-based file format (.vsdx) that replaces the Visio Drawing format (.vsd), the Visio XML Drawing format (.vdx) and the Visio Web Drawing format (.vdw). This means that you can save your diagrams to Office 365 or SharePoint and others can view your diagrams in the browser, all without an extra publish step or “intermediary” file. Of course, you can still work with your existing Visio drawings. We support a compatibility mode to ensure that your existing Visio Drawings remain compatible with older versions of Visio.

We’ll be posting more blog posts with details on everything above and more. Keep checking in for updated articles. And please share your comments and let us know if there are topics you’d like to see us post on in the future. Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay update-to-date on our latest blog posts.

Welcome to the Visio Preview and stay tuned…


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Saturday, December 22, 2012

Download the free Microsoft Visio Viewer

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AppId is over the quota

The Microsoft Visio ViewerThe Microsoft Visio Viewer is a free download that lets anyone view Visio drawings without having Visio installed on their computer. If you have Visio, you can still benefit from the viewer because it allows you to preview drawings in both Outlook and the Windows Preview pane. We recommend that everyone with Windows 7 or Windows 8 download the latest viewer to get the best experience viewing drawings.

There are two notable changes to the new viewer.

The viewer allows you to view drawings saved to our new file format (as well as prior file formats). The viewer supports viewing our new shape effects, which are widely used by the new themes, variants and styles.

If you do not have the new Visio but want to view drawings created in the new Visio, you should download the new version of our free viewer.

If you don’t have Visio installed and don’t have access to Visio Services on SharePoint, viewing Visio drawings is still as simple as double-clicking the drawing in Windows Explorer. Internet Explorer will open, and the viewer will render the drawing in the browser. The viewer allows you to pan and zoom, navigate to different pages, see shape properties, and set different viewing options.

The Visio Viewer also allows users to preview Visio drawings in Microsoft Outlook. In Outlook, you can simply single-click on a Visio drawing sent as an attachment and the viewer will display it in Outlook. You can pan and zoom the drawing, and switch to different pages. Right-click on the preview image to see some of these options.

Even if you have Visio, this is a quick way to take a peek at the drawing without leaving Outlook.

You can also preview a Visio drawing directly in Windows. In Windows Explorer, click the View tab, select Preview pane, then single-click on a Visio drawing. The drawing will be displayed in the preview pane.

The options to pan, zoom and switch to different pages, and the right mouse menu are available in the Windows Explorer preview pane.

One of the top questions we get about the Visio Viewer is how it differs from Visio Services. These are both products available to view Visio drawings without having Visio installed, but they are very different!

To understand the differences, we have to stop and talk a moment about Visio Services. Visio Services is part of SharePoint and SharePoint Online in Office 365. You can upload a Visio file to SharePoint and then everyone else can view it. Nothing needs to be installed on the user’s computer, and, in fact, the file can be viewed from a wide variety of devices--desktops, laptops, mobile phones, and tablets. It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, and it includes enhancements for touch and for mobile devices with smaller screens.

Visio Services

With Visio Services, users can also add comments to the drawing and, when a drawing is connected to data, Visio Services can refresh the data and update the shapes in the drawing that are linked to data. This makes Visio Services great for creating dashboards and keeping people up to date with the latest information.

In comparison, the Visio Viewer provides a static view of the drawing: users cannot add comments and the drawing does not update as data changes. The viewer is also something that you install on your computer. The viewer is very useful for viewing Visio drawings, especially when you don’t have Visio or Visio Services. Visio Services, however, is a much more powerful tool for interacting with Visio drawings.

We want to make it easy for everyone to view Visio drawings, especially the modern-looking and professional diagrams made in the new Visio. We recommend that you download new Visio Viewer to get the best viewing experience.

Please continue to let us know what you think by commenting below!


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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Top timeline tips in Visio

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With the new Visio you can quickly create clean, organized timelines that make it easy to order events and share information. Improvements we made across the product allow the new timelines to take on a variety of different looks to create beautiful, professional diagrams. Specifically, we made it easier to:

Apply themesCustomize dates and elementsReposition shapesSwitch between timeline styles

Visio timeline

This blog post will walk through making a timeline so you can learn about the new features and some tips and tricks along the way.

Suppose you want to create a timeline to illustrate key milestones and map out events in your project. To begin, navigate to the Start Experience, and then find the Schedule category.

 Visio Start Experience

Select the timeline template.

 Timeline template icon in Visio

In Visio, each template includes shapes and tools that are specific to a type of diagram. The timeline template includes features that let you align milestones and intervals to timeline shapes based on dates. The Timeline tab is a useful place to adjust settings for the entire diagram.

From the Shapes Pane, chose one of three timeline shapes. Don't worry - you can switch between types at any time through the right-click menu. We simplified the set of shapes, giving you the option to choose a block, line or cylindrical one. After you choose a shape, you can also choose from a greater combination of styles. You can create a ruler or divided timeline, as you did in previous versions of Visio. All you need to do is change the interim marker position through the right-click menu. You can apply these combination of styles at any time!

Tip: To make formatting milestones and intervals quicker, set the timeline defaults when you start. To do this, go to the Timeline tab, and open the "Date/Time format" dialog. Now make all your milestones and intervals have the desired date format on drop, by entering them in the diaglog box.

 Change Date and Time Format Dialog in Visio

You can now populate the timeline with your milestones and intervals. To distinguish different categories of events or highlight significant deadlines, set the milestone type by using the right-click menu.

Next, position your milestones so all the text is readable. To help you do this, we improved how you position milestone and intervals. When you drop a milestone, it now sits on the top of the timeline by default. (You can get the old position back through the right-click menu.) We made the leader line (the line that connects the milestone to the text) easier to position with one click.  Additionally, when you drag the leader line below the timeline, Visio automatically updates the position of milestones.

 Milestones on a Visio timeline

Tip: For timelines with several milestones, we added a text-positioning feature to help with spacing. You can set how the text aligns to the leader line by using the paragraph alignment properties available in the floatie or the Home tab.

Aligning milestone text on a timeline

Milestones and intervals have smart behavior to adjust their geometry based on the timeline type. For example, when you drop an interval on a cylindrical timeline, the interval adjusts to fit the curved shape. This makes it even easier for you to switch between timeline styles!

Cylindrical interval on a timeline

You can change the interval type through the right-click menu. For example, a block interval can have text inside or outside the timeline, and can easily switch to a bracket or curly bracket interval. The bracket interval has been updated so that brackets can be extended as a whole or switched to a leader line to conserve space.

Square bracket updates on Visio timelines

When a timeline has a lot of details, you can add an expanded timeline. The expanded timeline lets you create a copy of a segment from the original timeline and resize it or add events independently of the timeline so you can drill down into further detail. This is particularly useful for a specific event such as a conference or trip. Drag an expanded timeline shape from the Shapes pane and drop the expanded timeline on top of the desired timeline. Select the date range for the expanded timeline to create a separate segment.

Expanded timeline in Visio

An additional customization can be used to show or hide elements of the intervals or milestones. Select a milestone or interval shape, then use the right-click menu to position the date above or below the description. You can also hide the date or description for any event.

Tip: Using guides is a great way to align milestones evenly. Once guides and rulers are turned on in the View tab, drag a guide from the top ruler onto the page. Attach the control handles of the leader line for each milestone or interval to the guide. For more information about guides, see this help article: Snap to guides to lay out a drawing.

Glue to guide to align milestones

Tip: An entire row of milestones can be adjusted by simply moving the guide up or down.

Move guide to adjust row of milestones

You can easily use themes to adjust the style of your diagram. Apply Quick Styles to milestones and intervals to visually differentiate between categories of events.

To create even more looks, try using different embellishment levels. The new timelines automatically adjust with the embellishment level of themes. For example, if you chose a high embellishment level theme, the block timeline gets wider and the text switches to all caps for emphasis. See the Theme blog post for more information about themes and embellishment levels.

 Visio timeline with high embellishment theme

 Our timeline is complete and we can print it or share on the web with Visio Services!

Through our review of how to create a timeline in the new Visio, we hope you see how easy we’ve made it to create great looking ones. Updated positioning behavior makes it quick to align events and unclutter busy regions. New geometry allows timelines to take on any theme, and new options in the right-click menu gives you the power to customize timelines the way you want.

Have a favorite timeline tip of your own you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments below!


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Saturday, October 20, 2012

Create professional diagrams quickly with the new Visio

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When we started our planning process for this version of Visio, we made it a central goal that it would be easier, faster and more pleasant to create beautiful, professional looking diagrams. To achieve that, we made a host of improvements to the application – far too many for us to cover here. So, for this post, I’ll aim to give you an overview of all the changes we made and cover a few of the most highly requested new features. Later posts will cover everything here in much more detail.

Making diagrams that can effectively communicate information is the heart and soul of Visio. Polished, professional looking diagrams grab attention, inspire more confidence, communicate more effectively and reflect well on the people who made them. It’s always been possible to make good looking diagrams in Visio. This version we not only wanted to make it possible to create amazing looking ones, we wanted to make it startlingly simple. In fact, I might go as far as to say we wanted to make it hard to create bad looking diagrams in Visio (yes, yes – I am sure you could still do it if you tried!)

The foundation for great looking diagrams in the new Visio is the integration of the same rendering engine that PowerPoint uses. So, all the cool effects and UIs you’re familiar with from PowerPoint are now in Visio too!

Visio effects example

All that power is great, but it’s like having a jet fighter without a pilot. It’ll do amazing things, if only you could figure out which button to push! Fortunately, we weren’t just aiming for the fighter pilot demographic. To make it incredibly easy to use all that power to get the look you want, we dramatically overhauled our theming feature. You just need to pick from among over 25 brand new, amazing looking themes and Visio will go and update the formatting on all your shapes to match that style.

Theme gallery

Here’s an image of the same diagram in three different themes. You can change between the following diagrams in a single click, easily moving from simple to vibrant to informal:

Example 1: New themes in Visio

Example 2: New themes in Visio

Example 3: New themes in Visio

Of course, we’ve also made updates across huge swaths of our content to freshen up its look and to take advantage of all the power of our new effects and themes. I’ll call out a few of the templates we’ve updated down at the bottom of this post.

Using Visio has always been great. We love receiving feedback that starts with “I love this program” (and doesn’t follow that with ‘but’)! We wanted to keep pushing on making the program fantastic to use to ensure that people keep finding the experience of using Visio to be efficient, intuitive and even – perhaps – enjoyable!

To achieve this, we invested across the board in polishing the product. We streamlined the ribbon and made our contextual UIs much more complete and focused. More commands than ever are now available right at your fingertips, which helps keep you focused on building your diagram instead of searching through complex UI to find the command you want. Try collapsing your ribbon in the new version and see whether using the right click menus makes you more efficient!

Outside the command space, we fixed hundreds of little road bumps (bugs :) that folks told us about when using the product, and we built out several major features that customers have been craving for a while. We also dramatically simplified our application look, so that the diagrams you’re making will take center stage, instead of needing to compete with Visio’s UI. Lastly, we added a raft of smooth transitions, which make the program much easier to follow, as well as making it a lot more attractive to use.

All in all, we are tremendously excited about how great using the next version of Visio is and we’re thrilled that you all will finally get to give it a try.

Yeah – I’ve got examples. Now that you’ve got the summary, I’d like to dive into a few specifics here. We’ve got later blog posts planned that will cover theming, effects and the command improvements – so I’m going to hold off on them. However, I would like to talk a bit about some of the top requested customer features that we’ve built as well as walk through some examples of templates that we’ve updated.

Change shape is one of the most highly requested customer features we’ve ever had. It’s not hard to see why. How many times have you dropped a process shape and connected it up, realizing later it should have been a decision? Or, have you ever wanted to give your simple decision shape more impact by subbing in one of the cool Visio Workflow shapes?

Changing a shape is now as easy as clicking a button and picking the shape you want. You can change one shape at a time or change several multi-selected shapes at once. This makes it easy to rough in a diagram with temporary shapes and then change to better looking, more accurate, or more appropriate shapes when you are ready to finish the diagram. You don’t have to worry about losing connections, formatting or settings; Visio transfers all that over to the new shape automatically.

Change shape

If you don’t see the shape you want in the Shapes pane, you can use Search to find it and the search results appear in the Change Shape choices. To make changing the shape even quicker, you can use Change Shape from our right-click menu (we call it The Floatee).

Another highly request feature has been the ability to quickly duplicate a page. Right-clicking on the page tab and selecting Duplicate now creates a new page with all of the shapes, formatting and properties of the original. You can use this to quickly create variations of a diagram or to use a particular page as a starting template for many others or to simply explore different layouts – all without risking the contents on your original page. Combining Duplicate Page with Change shape also allows you to quickly try out using different shapes as well.

It’s now much easier to find the shape you want. Search has been updated with new keywords to give better results and the results are organized more clearly and grouped by stencil. You’re shown up to the first four relevant shapes in each stencil and when you find the shape you want you can add it to your diagram or add in the whole stencil to the Shapes Pane with one click.

Find shapes

If you prefer to browse for shapes, we’ve also updated the More Shapes menu to make it easier to preview stencils and let you add or remove multiple stencils at once.

As I mentioned, we’ve also updated a huge portion of our content this release. There’ll be a whole article detailing what we’ve done later, so I just want to give you a taste here to illustrate a few of the changes that we’ve made.

Org Chart has been reworked with 10 completely new styles, each with its own unique look. We’ve made the use of pictures super easy as well. The net result is that in a few clicks you can make org charts with incredibly varied styles that range from minimal to professional to hip to playful – whichever is appropriate for the personality of your team or organization.

Containers were already a powerful tool for diagram creation and they’re even better now. Not only are there new containers for you to use, we’ve also added the ability to format containers with a variety of new looks. Whether you want something purely functional or more stylistic, it’s easy to customize a container. Once you’ve selected a container style you want, you can change the heading style and use themes or quick styles to make it look just like you want.

Example 1: Containers in Visio

Example 2: Containers in Visio

Example 3: Containers in Visio

Like containers, new callouts give you options to give your diagrams a customized look. Callouts have been completely reworked to provide more choices and more formatting options. You can quickly integrate the look of your callouts to your diagram with Themes, or use Quick Styles to draw special attention to a specific callout.

New versions of these diagrams have updated shapes with a simple, modern look. In addition to making it easy to produce incredibly professional looking diagrams, these shapes are updated to include the newest hardware and concepts. We’ve also made the most important semantic details of the shapes more visually salient – making it easier to read large, complex diagrams.

There’s also a new version of the Workflow diagram that shares the modern look. Like the network shapes, you’ll find they can add flavor to other diagrams.

Don’t worry, though, the old 3D network and workflow shapes were so popular and iconic that we couldn’t take them out. So, you can still find them by searching or browsing through the template categories.

The Basic Diagram template is a great toolkit to start a generic diagram or to use in an existing one, and we’ve updated it to give you a wider variety of attractive and useful shapes. You’ll be able to use them to make quick drawings or add them to other diagrams to help illustrate your information. We’ve added lots of new shapes, including decorative shapes, arrow shapes, graph and math shapes.

And even with all that, we’ve just touched the tip of the iceberg on what the new Visio can offer. Check out our upcoming blog posts for deep dives on everything I touched on above.

We hope that you’ll find it easier, faster and more pleasant to create beautiful, professional looking diagrams in Visio than it has ever been before!

We would love to see your comments on this and other blog posts and if there are other topics you’d like to see us cover, let us know.


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