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 users.
[Read more…] about Update to LayerManager add-in for non-English usersProducts
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 changing the layer settings. Visio layers can also have a color assigned, and its transparency, without affecting the original colors, so layers can be quickly set to grayscale, for example, to make other layers more visible, and bring attention to them. My LayerManager add-in for Visio has become quite a popular aid to working with layers, and now I have added layer color editing and multiple selection capabilities to the Page Layers tab!
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Visio Shape Report Converter Excel add-in available
I am delighted to announce that I have just had my first Excel add-in accepted in the Office Add-ins Store! It is called Shape Report Converter because all it does is convert a Shape Report converted from Visio for Desktop to a modern Excel table with one click!
It isn’t a complicated add-in, and it doesn’t do anything that you can’t do manually, but it does save time, and ensures consistency … and it is free!
[Read more…] about Visio Shape Report Converter Excel add-in availableBinding Visio and Excel with Data Visualizer
I re-vamped some of my content about the Visio Data Visualizer add-in for Excel in my last post, so I thought I should expand a bit more on the Data Visualizer feature in Visio for Desktop (Visio Plan 2) and Excel for Desktop. I have described it in detail in previous posts, but I never published the process diagram I created for the Data Visualizer Wizard in Visio. So, I thought I would use it to demonstrate a few cool features of Visio for Desktop.
SS Plus for Visio enhanced to support non-English PowerPoint Smart Layouts
A while ago, I wrote an add-in for Visio Plan 2, SS Plus, that enhances the PowerPoint export from Visio. This has been working fine for this using Microsoft Office in English, but a problem was recently brough to my attention about non-English users. The problem was that the PowerPoint Smart Layou names are in English, and were not showing up in the drop-down list on the SS Plus Settings dialog. This meant that no Smart Layout was being applied automatically to the export from Visio. Well, I am pleased to report that this has now been fixed, and existing users can upgrade free of chare, whilst others can download to trial for free.
The solution is not absolutely perfect though, because the list may appear initially in English until the first export is done to PowerPoint. SS Plus then grabs the names of the Smart Layouts from PowerPoint in the Office language.
I am afraid that the rest of the text is still in English though, because I am not fluent in anything else … to my shame!
In case there are any other requests, I have also added in a new Feedback form.
Fixing the sub-shape layer assignments of Visio shapes
I was preparing a new update of my Layer Manager tool, and was constantly coming across a lack of quality control in the sub-shape layer assignment in a number of the master shapes in Microsoft provided stencils. I have mentioned this to Microsoft as a bug before but the problem still persists in Visio for the Desktop today.
The layering capability in Visio is pretty comprehensive but can become complicated to manage … without a third-party tool such as Layer Manager. This is because every element in a Visio page can be assigned to zero, one or multiple layers, and this applies to all sub-shapes within a group shape. So, it is possible to assign layers to a group shape without assigning any layers to the sub-shapes. This means that these shapes are always visible and printable, even if you have hidden the layers assigned to the group. This is exactly the issue with a number of the master shapes in Visio, as in the following Home Plan example available from the Sample Diagrams / Maps and Floor Plans category
All layers visible 
All layers invisible