Rotating fill patterns?

[stevray]

Is it possible to create a custom fill pattern such that the pattern rotates whenever the shape that it is filling is rotated?  For example, you might fill a rectangle with equally spaced horizontal lines.  If you then rotate the rectangle, say, 45 degrees, the fill lines remain horizontal.  Is there any way to have them also rotate by 45 degrees along with the rectangle?

[Visio Guy]

Hi Stevray,

There are two different patterns types: old and new. The fancy gradients are newer, and rotate with the shape.

The patterns near the top of the list are old (been around since Windows 3.1) and use some sort of bitmap fill. You'll notice they change resolution as you zoom in and out - your shape will get more or less lines as you zoom in or out. I think they all print as gray on printers, which have more dpi than monitors.

A third type of fill: custom patterns, built by users will also behave correctly. So you can define your own hatch pattern, and it will rotate properly with the shape.

Go to: File > Shapes > Visio Extras and you'll see bunch of "pattern" stencils.

- Custom Line Patterns
- Custom Patterns - Scaled
- Custom Patterns - Unscaled

If you open these stencils, you won't see anything until you go to Format > Line or Format Fill, and look in the Pattern drop-down lists.These stencils are just containers for sets of custom-defined line and fill patterns.

They might only be available with Visio Pro, though. I'm not sure.

You can define your own patterns, and you'll find more info in the articles under this tag:

Visio Guy - Custom Patterns