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.
Update to LayerManager add-in for non-English users
A French user of LayerManager recently reported that the Refresh Counts button was not working for him, and a few other users were recently finding that the trial period was reporting expired immediately after download. Both of these issues have hopefully been addressed in the latest version 23.3.1, which is available for free to current…
Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio beyond its limits
My last post was about some of the lessons learnt when trying to push Data Visualizer to its limits, but this one has some ways of overcoming these limitations. The main lesson learnt is that DV binds the shapes within the DV container shape, CFF Data Visualizer, and controls some of the ShapeSheet cells that…
Pushing Data Visualizer in Visio to the limits!
Regular readers of my blog will know that I like to use the Data Visualizer (DV) in Visio Plan 2, but I recently tried to help a user who really decided to push it to the limits. In this scenario, there were multiple connections, but with different labels, being created between the same flowchart shapes,…
Teams Tuesday Podcast Recording about Visio
I am delighted to share the link to my recent demonstration and conversation with fellow MVP Peter Ward about Visio in Teams. We discussed more than just Visio … and I look a bit like Max Headroom! (more…)
Linking Data to Visio Shapes in Code
One of the most useful capabilities of Visio Professional and Visio Plan 2 is to link external data to shapes and have them refreshed by changes in the data source. So, many of my solutions involve writing code to make these links, and they are covered with some VBA examples in my book, Mastering Data…
Editing Visio Layer Colours with LayerManager
Desktop Visio has a tremendous ability to assign shapes to none, one or more layers, and the efficient use of them can make a drawing so powerful by toggling layers visibility or locking certain layers whilst working on other layers. The same drawing can be used, displayed or printed for many different purposes just by…
Leave a Reply