Connector Tool Text

[gzema]

I'm battling an intermittent bit of goofiness with Visio 2003 and its Connector Tool and text.  This is going to get weird, so hang on to something.

I used the Connector Tool to draw my happy little wire connections from point A to B to C, blah, blah, blah.  I then went back to enter a wire number on them but there was no break in the wire so the text could be read.  In other words, the text sat on top of the wire.  I tried the Line Tool and it worked normally.  I thought something was amiss in the various Properties menus but all looked normal as far as I could tell.

Here's my troubleshooting sequence:

I opened my template and drew one connector line, no good.  "No good" means the text was goofy as noted above.  I opened a couple other of my templates, all no good.  To me that meant something changed ALL my templates as opposed to me doing something to affect the one drawing I was working on. 

I opened the stock Visio template and all was okay.  I changed the stock template to landscape and 11x17 then copied my troubled drawing onto that template.  The Connector Tool's text then worked properly. 

Now here's where it gets weird:  I was all set to fix my other templates but now they were working properly too.  One more weirdness:  this happened once before but I didn't do the "copy-to-stock-template" deal at that time because it somehow magically fixed itself. 

Something is obvioulsy telling Visio to do this, but what?  I've seen Outlook mess with Word and vice-versa.  Is that what I'm fighting?

Any ideas?

Thanks.
George

[vojo]

while in text entry mode, set fill to white

[cliff50]

at a glance.. I am thinking the text block of your connecter tool is offset.. maybe set to high on its Y axis.. thats why the wire numbers appear above the line.. draw another connector.. enter text and see where the text block is at ..its the "A" drop down-> "A with a circle icon ".. this allows you to set where the text block will sit on the connector line.....I am not sure about the intermittancy issue.. Are the drawings made in landscape mode or portrait ? Was the template initially landscape or portrait?
my experience is every time you activate another fresh connector its default text block is dead centre on the connector line both X and Y axis..is it possible that at some point when you were drawing the diagram you adjusted the text block Y axis of a connector and then copied or duplicated from that adjusted connector to continue connecting on your diagram ?

[vojo]

for that, I typically make a 1D shape that is a group of connector and text block....place the text block where you want it
(could put intelligence based on start and end to determine above/below / next to connector.     intelligence with affect text transform of text block).
From there, fold into your a stencil for reuse.

I am not aware of some such intelligence in the connector tool for this.

[gzema]

All good suggestions that I'll try next time it goes nuts.  For now, it's behaving. 

Wasn't it easier when it was graph paper, a straight-edge, a pencil, and an eraser?  Well, no, I guess not.   

Thanks to all.

George