Confining shape to area of page

[gizzle]

Hello,

I searched the forum and was unable to find an answer for this.  What I am trying to do is confine a large shape to the page area of my drawing. 

I am using Visio to create accident diagrams and have not been able to format it the way I need to.  I have a custom page size which I need to keep.  I have shapes which are jpgs of intersections which I imported and then added to a stencil.  When I drag the shape of the intersection, which is quite large, to my drawing, it covers the entire page and I am unable to see the page area.  I would like to have it so that the shape does not overlap the edges of the page, but rather have the page like a "window" so that I can drag the shape around within the page, but the gray area around the page area is still visible so that I know where the diagram will be centered when it is imported into our accident software. 

I am hoping that it is possible to do it this way rather than having to change the size of the shape and crop it to fit the page.

Thanks in advance!

[Visio Guy]

Hi Gizzle,

You can do what you want by adding smarts using the ShapeSheet, but then you'd need to do that for every image you import - there's nothing that would automatically do this. So you would want to write a tool that did this with the press of a button if you are doing it often.

A simpler approach might be to give the image some transparency. Use the "Picture" toolbar to do this. Give your image 10% transparency, and you'll be able to see where the page ends and the pasteboard starts quite easily.

[gizzle]

Thanks so much for the help!

I will not be able to adjust the transparency of the shape because when the drawing is then imported into our accident report software, the grid lines also show and appear quite distorted because the program scales the drawing down.

Is there a particular parameter or setting in the "smarts" you referred to that I will need to enter to accomplish this?  I'm fairly adept at learning new computer-related skills so I don't need a tutorial; could you perhaps just point me in the right direction?

Thanks again!

[Visio Guy]

Hi Gizzle,

The grid lines shouldn't show (unless you have drawn your own grid lines...another story).

While we are in the Picture toolbar, how about using the Crop tool to make the shape fit the page?

To see what happens when you crop, go to Window > Show ShapeSheet and look for the Image Info section. This is where cropping is controlled, behind the scenes. With a programming language like VBA, VB.Net, C# you can automate the setting of these cells to control cropping of a shape programmatically.

[gizzle]

The software that we use doesn't actually import the visio drawing, it merely takes a snapshot of it and uses that as the diagram.  Whatever is visible to the user as you're manipulating the drawing in visio is what shows up when it is saved.  Does that make sense, or were you trying to tell me something else that I completely missed? 

The way a shape appears when it is has been cropped is exactly what I am looking for.  When I confine the crop area to the outline of the page, that is the effect I would like to have whenever the shape is added to the page.  Cropping is simple enough, however, the problem is that I am trying to implement this in a way that all users can understand with minimal tinkering on their part.  I am trying to use visio to replace the current underpowered diagramming software we have. 

My goal is to have stencils with vehicles, signs, and major intersections added to a template.  The user will open the template, and then drag the shape of the intersection they need to the page, and hopefully it will automatically be cropped instead of them having to do it themselves (change is hard enough to implement, let alone when it involves more "work" for the user .

If I understand what you're saying correctly, you're saying I can insert a shape, crop and position it how I want it, look in the shapesheet to see the size and coordinates of how it's placed, and then use these numbers for each shape before I add them to the master stencil? 

My question is, if the user drags the shape onto the page when adding it from the stencil, won't that reposition it from where I want it?  Also, will the user still be able to drag the shape around within the cropped area so that they can move to a different part of the intersection if needed?

Thanks.