Copyright: (C) 1996-1997 Visio Corporation
Citation: (C) 1996-1997 Visio Corporation


Basic Diagram Template

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The Basic Diagram Template provides a standard-size portrait drawing page; basic shapes such as triangles, squares, circles, ellipses, and arrows; and connectors. It's a great place to start if you want to create a simple representational drawing. You can use the basic shapes as they are or modify them to suit your needs.

See also:

Resizing and reshaping shapes

Adding properties to shapes

You can associate data with Visio shapes by adding custom-property fields to the shape, then entering data.

For example, you can associate the cost or duration of a process with a shape that represents the process. Or you can associate a salary with a position shape in an organization chart.

To associate data with a shape, run the Custom Properties Editor to add property fields to the shape. After adding the property fields, you can enter data into them by selecting the shape, then choosing Shape > Custom Properties.

To run the Custom Properties Editor:

•	Choose Tools > Macro > Custom Properties Editor.

See also:

Adding, editing, and deleting custom-property fields

Generating reports from properties

If you've entered data in the property fields associated with your shapes, you can run the Property Reporting Wizard to generate inventory or numerical reports based on the data. For example, you could calculate the average cost for several processes or you could create a cost and duration summary for all the steps in the chart.

To run the Property Reporting Wizard:

•	Choose Tools > Property Report.

See also:

Creating reports from custom data

Linking shapes to other drawing pages, other files, or World Wide Web locations

You can add navigational links to any shape in your diagram, so that users of the diagram can right-click the shape to jump to separate drawing pages, separate files, or documents on an intranet or the World Wide Web. For example, you can link a process shape to a Microsoft Word document that describes the process in detail.

To add links to shapes:

•	Choose Insert > Hyperlink.

See also:

Adding, modifying, and deleting hyperlinks

Placing Visio drawings on the World Wide Web

You can easily convert a Visio drawing to a format Web browsers can read. Then you can distribute the drawing on an intranet or the Web.

See also:

Exporting shapes and drawings in .jpg or.gif format

Saving drawings as HTML pages


Adding properties to shapes

Generating reports from properties

Linking shapes to other drawing pages, other files, or World Wide Web locations

Placing Visio drawings on the World Wide Web