• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

bVisual

  • Home
  • Services
    • How Visio smartness can help your business
    • Visio visual in Power BI
    • Visio Consulting Services
    • Visio Bureau Services
    • Visio Training and Support Services
  • Products
    • SS Plus
    • LayerManager
    • visViewer
    • Metro Icons
    • Rules Tools for Visio
    • The Visio 2010 Sessions App
    • Multi-Language Text for Visio
    • Document Imager for Visio
    • multiSelect for Visio
    • pdSelect for Visio
  • Case Studies
    • Case studies overview
    • Visualizing Construction Project Schedules
    • Visio Online Business Process Mapping
    • Nexans Visio Template
    • CNEE Projects, WorldCom
    • Chase Manhattan Bank
  • News
    • Recent news
    • News archive
  • Resources
    • Articles➡
      • ShapeSheet Functions A-Z
      • Comparing Visio for the Web and Desktop
      • Customising Visio Shapes for the Web App
      • Key differences between the Visio desktop and web apps
      • Using the Visio Data Visualizer in Excel
      • Using Visio in Teams
      • Creating Visio Tabs and Apps for Teams with SharePoint Framework (SPFx)
      • Designing Power Automate Flows with Microsoft Visio
      • Innovative uses of Visio Lists
    • Webcasts ➡
      • Visio in Organizations
      • My session and other Visio sessions at MSIgnite 2019
      • Power up your Visio diagrams
      • Vision up your Visio diagrams
      • The Visio 2010 MVP Sessions
    • Visio Web Learning Resources
    • Books➡
      • Mastering Data Visualization with Microsoft Visio
      • Microsoft Visio Business Process Diagramming and Validation
      • Visualizing Information with Microsoft Visio
  • Blog
    • Browse blog articles
    • Visio Power BI articles
    • Visio for Web articles
    • A history of messaging and encryption
  • About us
    • About bVisual
    • Testimonials
    • Bio of David Parker
    • Contact Us
    • Website Privacy Policy
    • Website terms and conditions
    • Ariba Network
You are here: Home / Visio / Visio for M365 / Making Custom Shapes for Visio for M365

Published on March 9, 2022 by David Parker

Making Custom Shapes for Visio for M365

I recently revised my chess and checkerboard Visio documents to work in Visio for the Web (Visio Plan 1), but now that Microsoft are providing a version of Visio free to M365 business users, I need to make some further adjustment to get them to work for these users who do not have a Visio Plan 1 or Plan 2 license. The problem is that Microsoft restricts the capabilities of the free version by white-listing Visio masters. So, the answer is to delete the masters … then the Visio document becomes editable in Visio for M365!

So, what is the downside?

Firstly, the size of the Visio document will increase when the masters in the Document Stencil are deleted.

The size is increased because Viso must remove all the inheritance of the formulas in the ShapeSheet of each shape. For example, the images below show some of the ShapeSheet of a single Chess Piece where it is an instance of a master, and where it is not. In the inherited version, there is extraordinarily little blue text to be seen. The blue text indicates that the value is stored locally in the shape, and in this example, it is only for the position and the specific shape color and icon data. However, every single formula is blue in the version without masters because Visio cannot inherit anything, so must store it all locally with the shape. Therefore, the file gets larger!

  • Inherited formulas
  • No inherited formulas

This is just a small Visio document, but on larger ones, with more shapes and more masters, this can become a genuine problem.

Secondly, the ShapeSheet developer has lost the ability of making simple edits to the master shape and having them automatically inherited by all instances, in all pages. For me, this is a fundamental issue, however, there may be some Visio diagrams that may be suitable for publishing to M365 users by removing the masters. The chess and checkerboard diagrams are suitable for this because they do not need to be maintained once published.

So, now a Visio for M365 user can edit these Visio documents and play chess or checkers with other users. Of course, the Shapes panel can be minimized because no other masters are required to enjoy them, and the shapes still retain their smartness, as described in the previous articles.

Download the files to your own OneDrive for Business, Teams, or SharePoint Online folders.

Masterless Online Chess.vsdx

Masterless Online Checkerboards.vsdx

I look forward to the day when we can make custom masters for Visio for M365 users!

A Visio List Shape is also a Container

Structured diagrams have been around in Microsoft Visio since 2010 and I have always known that list shapes are a specialized container shape, however it still came as a surprise to me recently that a list shape can simultaneously act as a container shape! There are a few examples of both container and list shapes…

Taking Visio Actions Rows to the limit

I recently (re-)discovered that there is a limit to the number of Actions section rows that will be evaluated for display on the right mouse menu of a Visio shape. I have not hit a limit (yet) for the number of rows that can be added to the Actions section … so why is there…

Custom Shapes in Visio in M365 and Web

Microsoft recently announced the ability to access the shapes in the document stencil whilst using Visio for Web … if you have a Visio Plan 2 license. So, I thought I would make it clear what that means for custom shape developers. There are now three licenses that provide the ability to edit Visio diagrams…

A Multi-Time Zone Clock for Visio

I wrote a post about making a clock face in Visio fifteen years ago, but a reader recently asked about displaying multiple time zones. Well, I have previously written about time zones in Visio, so I accepted the challenge to improve upon my earlier work. (more…)

Update any Visio ShapeSheet cell with External Data

When Microsoft introduced a new way of linking external data to Visio shapes in 2007, I initially bemoaned the inability to update anything but Shape Data row values, unlike the old database add-on that I had been using for 10 years. The new method, though, has many advantages over the old way, not least that…

Referencing Container Data in Visio

Microsoft Visio has a useful Structured Diagramming concept that consists of Containers, Callouts and Connectors. The first of these features make it possible for shapes to know what they are contained within, as a better option to grouping shapes together. Grouping can hide or break the grouped shapes smartness, so Visio provides two ways of…

Related

Filed Under: Visio, Visio for M365 Tagged With: ShapeSheet, Visio, Visio for M365, Visio for the Web

About David Parker

David Parker has 25 years' experience of providing data visualization solutions to companies around the globe. He is a Microsoft MVP and Visio expert.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Recent Posts

  • A Visio List Shape is also a Container
  • Taking Visio Actions Rows to the limit
  • TimeTable at RMConnect 2022
  • Custom Shapes in Visio in M365 and Web
  • A Multi-Time Zone Clock for Visio

Categories

Tags

Accessibility Add-Ins Containers Data Export Data Graphics Data Import Data Visualizer Educational Excel GraphDatabase Hyperlinks Icon Sets JavaScript Layers Legend Link Data to Shapes Lists MSIgnite MVP Office365 Org Chart PowerApps PowerBI PowerQuery Processes Shape Data Shape Design ShapeSheet ShapeSheet Functions SharePoint 2013 SQL Teams Themes Validation VBA Video Visio Visio 2007 Visio 2013 Visio for the Web Visio Online Visio Pro for Office365 Visio Services Visio Viewer Webinar

Footer

bVisual Profile

The UK-based independent Visio consultancy with a worldwide reach. We have over 25 years experience of providing data visualization solutions to companies around the globe.

Learn more about bVisual

  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Search this website

Recent posts

  • A Visio List Shape is also a Container
  • Taking Visio Actions Rows to the limit
  • TimeTable at RMConnect 2022
  • Custom Shapes in Visio in M365 and Web
  • A Multi-Time Zone Clock for Visio

Copyright © 2022 · Executive Pro on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in