Can you recommend a good book for an intermediate user?

[Orthoducks]

I've been using Visio off and on for at least 15 years. I've decided it's time to get a more solid understanding of it, so that I won't have to stumble through any task that I haven't encountered before.

I'm looking for a book that I can use to learn how to accomplish tasks when I don't necessarily know what features I need. For example, I recently had to draw some contiguous irregularly shaped polygons; I figured out how to draw polygons but I never found good tools for drawing them contiguously, because I didn't know what to look for. The book I want to read would help me with that.

I'm currently using Visio 2013, and I'm wary of books for earlier versions because the user interface has changed so much from release to release. It would be nice to have a book that remains useful with the next release, though.

[Yacine]

Hi,
the kind of tricks you describe, will not be mentioned in any Visio book.
These are tricks of mechanical design and related to CAD software.
I bet you won't find any appropriate lecture on that.

[Orthoducks]

Thank you, Yacine, but I think you may have interpreted my question too literally. Whether there's a good solution to the particular problem I mentioned is incidental. It's an example of the type of problem I want a book to help me with.

I bought Visio 2013 Step by Step on the strength of its Amazon reviews. It's probably a good book, but it's the wrong book for me.

I want a book that explains a technique succinctly, then provides examples that I can study if I need them. Step by Step is the exact opposite; it's written for total beginners who want to learn by being hand-led through demonstrations one tiny step at a time. It often doesn't even tell me what it's demonstrating until the demonstration is over.

It's organized around topics that are meaningless from a problem/solution point of view, like "Adding Sophistication to your Drawings." I'm never, ever going to turn to a book to solve a problem like "How can I add sophistication to my drawings?"

And if I find an explanation of what I need, I have to read a really incredible amount of micro-detailed instructions to figure out what it's trying to tell me.

There must be something better out there.

[JuneTheSecond]

I think you are already aware that this forum is the best "book".

[AndyW]

I still find Graham Wideman's Visio 2003 Developer's Survival Pack invaluable, although obviously does not cover later Visio additions such as the fluent ribbon UI etc.

[aledlund]

Well it doesn't technically  come under the heading of a 'book', but rather it comes under education. Chris was able to save the location of the Visio MVP Videos and I think they were excellent. MS really fouled up when they removed the corporate pointers to this material.
http://www.visguy.com/2012/02/01/roll-em-new-visio-2010-video-series-by-visio-mvps/

hth,
al