I've wasted a couple hours now time trying to find a simple (let alone complex) way to simply apply a theme style (Accent1, etc, etc) to a shape. I've opened every toolbar on planet earth, navigated right-click menus until my middle-finger was numb, and read about every page I can on themes, shapes, smart shapes, etc, etc.
I don't see why it has to be so difficult! I just want to right-click my shape, and change the theme style, so that I can have more than just one color for my shapes.
Someone please enlighten me on how to do this?
Thanks :)
Hi PF,
A Theme applies to the look of the whole drawing, so you don't really apply a theme to a single shape.
A style is similar in that it is a designed set of line, fill and text attributes.
It sounds to me like you just want to format a shape, and you are either trying to format a foreign object, like an imported metafile or bitmap that won't react to Visio line, fill, or text formatting, or you have run into a shape that is protected and guarded against user-modification.
Which shape are you working with?
Nope, just creating the simplest of flow charts from the standard set of shapes. All white, no less. ;)
Hmmmm. Have you checked the shape's layer properties? Select a shape, right click > format > layer, to find which of any layers it is assigned to. If no layers are selected, the rest of this reply won't help. Go to the menu bar > view > layer properties. Look to see if the layer has the color column checked. If so uncheck it, and that should allow you to change colors. If not, this reply still won't help. :(
After much grief, I resigned to just assigning the colors manually as needed, using the formatting drop down. But as I continued to play with the chart, I noticed that my custom-assigned colors would change when I updated the theme.
As I would come to find out, simply using the color dropdowns from the formatting toolbar is indeed the way to apply theme-compatible colors. The styles for each theme is shown in its own column with a list of screens (lighter shades) of that style's color.
Simple enough... But I still think this could be a bit more intuitive! :D
There's a lot to be said about perseverence! Great that you were able to work through it. ;D
Ok, I just dubbed John Goldsmith (http://www.visguy.com/2008/09/29/improving-visios-save-as-web-feature/) the Save As Web Guy, wapperdude is going to have to be Positive Guy!
:)