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


Block Diagram with Perspective Template

  In this topic

Understanding perspective

The drawing page that opens with Block Diagram with Perspective Template includes a vanishing point that you can move to any location on the page. When you drop a shape on the drawing page, Visio orients the shape to the vanishing point.

Usually you orient all shapes to the same vanishing point, but it is possible to define a new vanishing point for one or more shapes.

To move a vanishing point:

•	Drag a vanishing point to a new position on the drawing page.

All perspective shapes on the drawing page shift their orientation to the vanishing point.

Tip: When you select this shape, a gray padlock appears, indicating that you can't resize or otherwise edit the shape.

To add a new vanishing point:

•	Drop a new vanishing point shape onto the drawing page in the appropriate location.

The new vanishing point doesn't affect shapes already on the page.

To orient a shape to a different vanishing point:

1.	Select the shape you want to reorient.

The shape's control handle, which is glued to the current vanishing point, turns red.

2.	Drag the control handle to a new vanishing point.

The control handle turns red, indicating the shape is glued to the new vanishing point.

Hiding shapes' 3-D appearance

You can make a perspective diagram easier and faster to revise by hiding the 3-D nature of the shapes.

To hide shapes' 3-D appearance:

1.	Choose View > Layer Properties.

2.	Click Visible to hide the 3-D layer, then click OK.

The shapes in your drawing look two-dimensional.

3.	After you revise your drawing, choose View > Layer Properties, click Visible, then click OK to show the 3-D layer.

Formatting Block Diagram Perspective shapes

Perspective block shapes have white faces and light- and dark-gray sides, top, and bottom. You can format the face, sides, and top or bottom separately.

To format a raised block shape:

1.	Select the shape you want to format, then click to subselect the face, side, top, or bottom of the shape.

2.	From the fill color palette on the Standard toolbar, choose a color for the subselected portion.

3.	Continue subselecting and choosing colors until all the portions are formatted.

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 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


Understanding perspective

Hiding shapes' 3-D appearance

Formatting Block Diagram Perspective shapes

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

Placing Visio drawings on the World Wide Web