Visio 2003 newbie

[peborgh]

Guys,

I need to use Visio to create diagrams that do not a present exist in the tool. Can I define a new drawing type that contains shapes from several of the existing ones?

I also believe that I can design entirely new shapes - please confirm.

Thanks,

peter

[Paul Herber]

All fairly simple stuff.
You can create a new stencil from the menu File -> Shapes -> New Stencil

Any shape can be copied and pasted, or dragged and dropped onto a stencil. Draw a simple shape, then drag it into a stencil. Then save it as any name you want.

A new drawing type is called a template, any diagram can be Save As (and select .vst).

To add these to the selection when you start Visio is a bit more complex, you can create an installer (.msi) file containing the stencils/templates, then use the Visio Solution Publishing Tool to specify how Visio sees them.

Download and install the Visio SDK.

[Yacine]

What do you want to draw?

[peborgh]

Second reply: What I want to do is describe reality and its relationship with information and its processing. Confluence of philosophy, psychology and IT. And possibly others! And no, I don't know where it might end up...

First reply: Thanks for the technical info. But I am not very clear still about how to create a new stencil that is permanently available in Visio 2013. Can you (guys) clarify?

many thanks,

peter

[Paul Herber]

That's because you didn't ask that question! (How's that for a mixture of philosophy, psychology and IT?)
A template can be arranged such that it always opens one or more stencils. If the stencil(s) is open when the template in saved and "Save workspace" is set then when a new document is created with that template then the stencil will be opened.

[Yacine]

Can you upload a (hand drawn) sketch of your idea? Visio is just a tool, you still need have a vision of how you want to display your information.

[wapperdude]

Just to clarify a point or two...it sounds like you want a custom configuration containing some existing and some unique shapes that you frequently use.  At the present, there is no plan to make this configuration distributable, that is, it only needs to be configured on your computer alone.  This doesnot prevent you from sharing your drawings with other Visio users, btw.  Is this correct?

Wapperdude

[peborgh]

wapperdude:Yes! Thanks.

yacine: I think all is will need is already in Visio. Actually, apart from a cartoon outline of a human brain!

peter

[Yacine]

So, Paul's answer was the closest to what you need.

I looked for some appropriate tutorials in Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5QySdEgecM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSSWMlvecfo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzQoFp2A7Sg

Hope that helps,
Y.

[wapperdude]

Nice tutorials Yacine.

[peborgh]

Thanks, yacine.
Is there an online source of Visio templates/stencils that are not in the distributed tool?

peter

[Jumpy]

for network shapes you can find much at:

www.visiocafe.com

And you can find some free Shapes/Stencils for process  modelling or other via google.

[Paul Herber]

Is there an online source of Visio templates/stencils that are not in the distributed tool?

I've got a list at
http://www.sandrila.co.uk/articles/visio-articles/