Interesting little feature - hmmm

[vojo]

So given
- 2 drawings
- 1 common stencil

It appears that when opening a drawing, one needs to close the current instance of common stencil and
reopen it for it to show up correctly.

I.e if drawing 1 was opened to weeks..some adds to stencil...then closed....then new/opening drawing 2 yesterday pointing to the same stencil...then opening drawing 1 today, the stencil needs to be closed and reopened for those week old adds to show up.   Smells like some sort of stencil ownership thing going on

Kind of odd since the whole idea of stencil was a set of shapes that can be reused. (never happened on 2003)
Not sure why the latest updates the common stencil are not reflected in stencil instance of last drawing.

[wapperdude]

Seemed to work fine for me.

Here's what I did...
Start Visio and created a new drawing.  Created new stencil, added couple shapes.  Saved stencil.  Saved drawing.  Exited Visio.

Re-start Visio, created a different new drawing.  Opened stencil from above step.  Added a new shape.  Saved stencil.  Drawing not saved. Don't exit Visio.  Open drawing file from above step.  Both drawing instances are open, separate windows.  Both show the same stencil.  Both stencils show all shapes from both steps.

[vojo]

hmmm...2013?

Maybe its just my set up.

[Hey Ken]

Vojo:

   I’ve been living that life for years using 2013 Professional at work and 2003 at home.  I have a common stencil (my Kencil) that I use everywhere all the time.  Never saw the behavior you describe.  Yes, it complains if I try to update it while it’s open in another instance, but when I close the other instance, update the stencil, then re-open the instance, everything is sweetness and light. 

   Sounds like you may have a cache-type of problem?  If you were in a browser, I’d recommend clearing your cache or hitting ctrl-F5.  No idea how to clear Visio’s cache, whatever that may mean.

   Good luck,

   - Ken

[vojo]

no browser...2013 pro

[Hey Ken]

Vojo:

   Another thought occurred to me: Since my Visio life is split between 2013 and 2003, of necessity my stencils are all .vss format.  Might be worth trying to save yours that way and see if it makes any difference.

   - Ken

[vojo]

not sure what you are suggesting

Deprecate stencil down to 2003 format?  Sure, since so frustrated with 2013 I use little of 2013 features.
(got yet another interesting SAVE problem:  In essence, need to save a shape to a stencil to have it reliably posted in the drawing...otherwise visio will at times, must "munge" up the shape....happened twice so far
Even to the point that if N identical shapes....all are munged up the same exact way unless you saved 1 to a stencil)

Promote stencil to 2013 format?  I use that now since 2013.

In general, Visio 2013 is a lot like Apollo 13:  " Lets look at this from status, what IS working on the platform"