Keeping Visio Data Graphic Items Level

My good friend Scott Helmers, Visio author and trainer, of Harvard Computing Group , recently asked for some help in keeping data graphic items level when their target shape is rotated. Fortunately, I was able to assist, so I thought I would explain how this can be done, and also update my Icon Maker macro from a few years ago. The updated macro is available to download for free and includes the extra ability of sizing the icons. I chose to use some bee stickers from the Insert / Illustrations / Icons tool in Visio Plan 2, and the Status options from the Process shape in the Basic Flowchart Shapes stencil to demonstrate.

All I had to so was to associate a suitable bee with a Status value 🙂

The trick is to ensure that the graphic item is a group shape without any visible text or geometry, but must contain at least one line which is preferably horizontal. Then to have a User-Defined Cell, named, say, Angle with the following formula:

"=ANGLETOPAR(ANGLEALONGPATH(Geometry1.Path,1),Width,ThePage!PageWidth)"

This formula uses the ANGLEALONGPATH(…) function to get the angle of a specified geometry segment, then the ANGLETOPAR(…) function to get the angle relative to the page. See Visio ShapeSheet Functions A-C for more of an explanation of these functions.

Then the Angle cell in sub-shapes just need to reference the User.Angle cell of the top shape, but prefixed with a minus sign. The effect is that the icons will remain level to the page when the target shapes are rotated:

Simply run the bVisualIconSetMaker.IconSetMaker.MakeIconSetFromShapes macro in the bVisualIconSetMaker.vssm macro-enabled stencil to create a data graphic icon set from the selected shapes.

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