How to make a master shape reference another master shape

Started by Jennifer, May 13, 2019, 08:24:24 AM

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Jennifer

Paul turned me onto to master shapes. It is saving me tons of duplicate space. But I ran into a little problem.

I have an image of a diamond that is fairly large. I moved it to a master shape so I could use it in a bunch of illustrations without having dozens of copies of the actual image. That part works great.

Now I need to create another master shape that is made up of 20 instances of the diamond master shape. Here's what I did:

  • I saved the file and made a note of the file size (46,471).
  • I copied an instance of the diamond shape onto a page and changed the size from 0.2x0.2 to 0.03x0.03. I saved the file and checked the file size (46,471).
  • I made 20 copies of the tiny instance, saved the file, and checked the file size (46,476).
  • I selected the 20 shapes and moved them to the Document Stencil, making them into a master shape, then saved the file and checked he file size (92,966). The size exploded. Moving the 20 instances to the stencil appears to have converted the 20 objects from instances into copies of the actual image.
  • I them made 5 copies of the instance of the 20-shape master shape on the page, saved the file and checked the file size (92,982).
  • I then deleted the 20-shape master shape and all instances, saved the file and checked the size (46,471).

Is there a way that I can make a master shape containing instances of another master shape without having Visio convert the instances into actual copies of the underlying image?
Using Visio 2019, part of Office 365 on Windows 10