How do I import a shape from illustrator? - found a solution

[berrick]

Hi everyone,

just a quick update to let everyone know that I have managed to get result I am happy to use. I found the easiest way in the end was to use inkscape to load work into and cut n paste from it into visio.

I also found Dmitry's png2vss util did a good job as well and saved some time as it could created the stencil too.

Thanks to all that offered suggestions to my question

[Nikolay]

Glad that it worked for you 

Just curious if you were able to import vector using inkscape, or a raster bitmap (png)?
If png, do you mean that copy-paste (or saving as png) from illustrator directly did not work for you?

It is just that we were under i pression that you wanted a vector (scalable) image in visio..

[berrick]

@Nikolay

I open the .ai in inkscape. I tried many things but copy n paste from inkscape worked for my needs.

As mentioned copy n paste from illustrator to visio the quality was horrible. Jagged edges and finer detail would be missing.

A lot of the difficulties I encountered may well be due to me not having much experience and although I like visio I find it incredibly frustrating to do stuff like this without a lot of messing around.

we were under i pression that you wanted a vector (scalable) image in visio..

Maybe this was my lack of in experience and I didnt need a .svg? I wanted to create a shape for visio that would scale without loss of quality and where the text also scaled.

As this is the first time I have tried to create a shape I assumed I needed to save the illustrator image as .svg? Most of the ways I tried to accomplish my goal hit problems of one type or another. Eventually the method I used above gave me the results I was prepared to except.

Hope this answers your question. Please feel free to correct any thing I have said which is incorrect?