Line Patterns: The Forgotten Children of Visio Stencils

Started by Yacine, July 13, 2025, 11:40:52 AM

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Yacine

You know how it is – you build a great SmartShape, polish its behavior, set the line pattern just right... and then proudly save it into a stencil, ready to be shared with the world.

Except – surprise! – the moment someone drags it into their drawing, *poof*, your carefully crafted line pattern is gone. Replaced by... nothing. Just a plain line.

At first, I didn't notice it myself. I always used the same drawing template, which had the patterns already baked in. So for years, I thought everything was fine. My SmartShapes looked great, because I never tested them *outside my comfort zone*.

Turns out: line patterns (and fill patterns too) are not embedded in stencils or masters. They simply don't travel. Apparently, the Visio team never considered these pattern definitions important enough to be tied to masters.

So here we are. You can't create a stencil with your own custom line patterns, because they will not come along for the ride. There's nothing a non-expert can do – no checkbox, no option, no warning.

So what can you do?

The only workaround I found was to manually copy the pattern definition from the original document and paste it into the new drawing via the Drawing Explorer. (That's right – Drawing Explorer – that dusty old pane we sometimes forget exists.)

But that defeats the whole purpose. You want to *share a stencil*. Not a document. Not a template. A clean, reusable stencil with ready-to-go masters.

A brute-force fix?

If you're comfortable with VBA, you could write a macro that transfers pattern definitions from a stencil into the active document. But that's a ridiculous amount of overhead for something that should Just Work.

I stumbled across https://visguy.com/vgforum/index.php?topic=603.0 , where this limitation was already known. Seveneer replies and no solution later... we're still stuck.

For now, I've gone with a poor man's fix: I replaced the custom line patterns with built-in line compound types. It's okay-ish. But it hurts. It's not the same.

So tell me, fellow Visio nerds:

* Have you run into this?
* Have you found a better workaround?
* Is there some dark ShapeSheet magic I'm missing?
* Or do we need to revive this topic and finally get a proper fix?

Let's shine some light on this issue. Because it's high time these forgotten patterns get the respect they deserve.

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Yacine

wapperdude

I'm trapped in my comfort zone.  Visio won't let me out.  I rarely use custom line patterns.  I tend to use the built. In fill patterns.  Haven't checked out your Visio file yet.  But off the top, I probably used multiple shapes with selected, builtin fill patterns.  Back in a bit...
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