Visio Guy

Visio Discussions => Shapes & Templates => Topic started by: snuuba on November 05, 2016, 08:00:34 PM

Title: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: snuuba on November 05, 2016, 08:00:34 PM
Anyway to make line tool begin / end arrow size even smaller than standard "very small"?

According to Visio documentation you can specify the size in shapesheet with BeginArrowSize and EndArrowSize. Valid values are between 0 (very small) and 6 (colossal).

I would like to have few sizes smaller begin/end arrows for lines. I am using line tool for wiring diagrams for IT gear and some adapter card shapes have such small "ports" that even "very small" arrow begin/end will overlap two "ports"
Title: Re: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: vojo on November 05, 2016, 08:07:50 PM
create your own line ends.

Plenty of doc...but generally
- open drawing navigator
- right click line ends ==> new
- name it <something cool>
- go back to drawing
- make whatever line end you want
- copy
- drawing navigator ==> lineend==> open <something cool>
- paste
- save

To use
- draw a line
- format ==> line
- I think its in the line start and end panels.
Title: Re: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: snuuba on November 05, 2016, 08:37:54 PM
Thanks for quick reply, problem solved
Title: Re: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: snuuba on November 06, 2016, 12:25:59 AM
Experimented with custom line ends. You can also include text in line begin/end arrows, but the catch seems to be that the text has to be a shape rather than character / font. Already found "alphabet" stencil, still looking stencil which contains numbers as shapes.
Title: Re: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: snuuba on November 07, 2016, 11:48:22 AM
http://www.visguy.com/2015/03/01/text-outlines-in-visio/ instructions how to turn characters / alphabet / numbers into visio shapes
Title: Re: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: Hey Ken on November 07, 2016, 02:52:32 PM
Snubba:

   Welcome to the forum!  And thanks for bringing up the idea of turning characters into Visio shapes.  It gave me the inspiration for solving  a completely-unrelated issue I've been facing (http://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=7400.msg31174#msg31174).  You da man!  (Da woman?  ;- )

   - Ken


Title: Re: Line tool minimum BeginArrowSize too large
Post by: snuuba on November 07, 2016, 05:16:11 PM
Thanks, I guess I am da man :)

Here is link to resulting: stencil (https://www.dropbox.com/s/g93qwccg8axqa7f/DontPokeThePolarBear-Essentials-Cables-Stencil.zip?dl=0)

Stencil contains color coded "wires" for documenting IT environments. Each cable is further coded with different line ends (speed/type, etc). I use the stencil to document mostly NetApp installations, but there are pretty generic cables, ethernet, fibre channel cables and such. In order to fit any text I had to use such small "font", that the text is visibile only when heavily zoomed in (400%-800%), but that is the zoom level I use any way when running cables.

I've created/modified a bunch of NetApp related stencils, complete package can be downloaded from my blog:http://dontpokethepolarbear.wordpress.com/visio-essentials-by-dptpb/ (http://dontpokethepolarbear.wordpress.com/visio-essentials-by-dptpb/)