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Visually appealing
MS Visio 2003 is largely used for networking and process flow diagrams, both for students and professionals. But Visio can do a lot more than just that, as the 2003 version is loaded with a host of new diagram types, stencils and cool graphics.
Let us discuss some of the exciting features of MS Visio 2003 which you can use for your documents, presentations or other custom-made applications.
3-D diagrams
As soon as you open Visio, “Choose drawing type” appears, showing templates in 16 categories. From “Block Diagrams,” select “Block diagrams with perspective” (metric or US units). An empty document is created and at the bottom-right, you see a cross-hair pointer with the caption VP (Vanishing Point). From the “Shapes” list on the left-hand side, select Elbow 3. This is an “L” shaped 3-D plane, which can be used to place other objects. Click on it once and you will see the usual eight shape-resize box handles.
There is also a circular handle on top (for rotation) and a yellow diamond shape at the bottom-right (to increase or decrease the thickness of an object). Notice that VP has a red diamond shape at the centre.
This is actually the second yellow handle of the inserted object, used for selecting 3-D orientation, attached with VP. Similarly, when you add new 3-D objects they are attached to VP and relocating it results in a synchronized shifting of the 3-D orientation of all objects present.
Bar charts
Did you think Excel was the only way to create charts? Guess again, because with Visio, you can also create cool graphs. Go to File>New>Charts and Graphs>Charts and Graphs (metric). On the left-hand side, the “Charting Shapes” (metric) stencil is displayed. Drag the “3-D bar graph” to the document. The “Custom Properties” dialog box appears. Carefully read the properties that give you control of the graph — bar count, bar colours, value represented by each bar and range of the graph. Press OK.
You can access bar graph properties any time by right-clicking on it and selecting “Bar count and range” or “Bar properties.” Other right-click options let you select bar outlines, while turning off the bars’ numeric value display.
Ink
If you have a diagram for peer-review and you want to add some comments or red circles on objects or figures, go to View>Toolbars and select Ink. Select a type of marker (ballpoint, felt-tip or a highlighter) and mark your way through the document. You can select ink colour and width and delete marks, using the eraser tool.
Reviewing
With the help of the Reviewing toolbar (View>Toolbars>Reviewing), you can turn on tracking (a log of changes made to document), using the “Track Markup” button. This results in a red outline over the current document. Clicking on the “Reviewing Pane” results in list of changes after trace markup was selected. If you want to add chunks of text but do not want them to be displayed all the time, use the “Comments” feature. Only when you move your mouse over a little caption (for example, your initials), the comment box appears and then disappears when cursor is repositioned.
Boxes and manipulation
The Pan & Zoom Window (View menu) shows a small-scale replica of the document in a box, with a slider zoom control that can be used to zero-in on any part of the diagram. You can even create a rectangle that determines what part of the document is displayed on full-screen view.
The Size and Position Windows (View menu) gives you precise coordinates, height, width, angle and other applicable statistics on the selected object, which you can edit. The Action toolbar (View>Toolbars) gives you one-click access to common features like flip, rotate, send to back or front, alignment, grouping, etc.
MS Visio is a great package for a variety of diagram needs, such as TQM, GUIs, UML, work flows and home plans. Use the features available wisely and you will be able to create impressive drawings.
The writer’s email is nizar.ali@gmail.com
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