Drag & drop image from Windows Explorer into Visio

[David.P]

Hi forum,

in Visio 2003, is there a trick how to insert bitmap images (e.g. PNG or JPG) by drag and drop from Windows Explorer directly into a Visio drawing?

I need to insert some 30 bitmaps and it's awkward to do that image by image through the respective menu dialog.

David.P

[Visio Guy]

Well, I was surprised to see that it works in Visio 2010!

Maybe try holding Ctrl or Alt or Shift while dragging...

...ok, I just fired up a Virtual PC with Visio 2007 on it. Ctrl + Shift while dragging from the desktop worked! Maybe it'll go for 2003 too.


Follow up:

Ctrl + Shift opens the image as a new drawing in Visio. Not quite what you need.

Still might be quicker than using the Insert dialog, though.

[David.P]

Chris, thanks very much for finding this trick! It was indeed easier to crl-shift-drag all the pictures at once, and then collect all images from the ~30 visio documents (again via drag & drop) into the target visio document.

Thanks!
David.P

[Djeez]

Another way is to drop the images to a new Wordpad document and from there you can drag them to Visio 2003.

-Djeez.

[markem]

I realize that this is a VERY old thread and the original person may have already upgraded to Windows 10.  But I still use Visio 2003 and this topic came up for me.  I too wanted to be able to drag and drop into Visio 2003.  Yeah, I know - UPGRADE!  Nope. :-)

The correct answer here is:  Bring up Microsoft's Paint program.  Drag your picture to Paint.  Once it is in, do a select all, copy and then you can do a paste in Visio and it will transfer.

The reason is - Visio 2003 only accepts drag and drop via Microsoft' proprietary BMP file file format.  Paint converts any other file format into a BMP file before it lets you begin editing it so then copy/paste works correctly. Just tried it with a 3000x3000 image.  Took a few seconds for Paint to convert the image but it worked without a problem.

Heh. I did decide to upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows XP but there is so much to do I'm having a hard time finding the time to upgrade.  Even bought a new computer to do it with. :-) Just too busy. :-)

By the way.  Anyone (and I mean anyone) who wants to revert back to Windows XP - Buy the Windows Driver pack on eBay. They now have over 2 million drivers and it will install the drivers for you.  So even if you buy a new system that is a 64 bit system - just install Windows XP 64 and then use the Windows Driver pack CD to install the right drivers and you are off and running with an OS that is very very small and fast.  You can do the same thing with Windows 7 or even 8 and 8.1.

[David.P]

Since I just had to collect some dozen bitmaps in a Viso 2003 drawing again:

IMHO the best way is to drag any number of images over the Visio title bar. Visio then opens every dragged bitmap in a new (source) window.

Now it's as easy as doing a "Window --> Arrange All" in Visio, and then simply drag every bitmap from those (source) windows to your main (target) Visio document, and close all other (source) windows.