Visio 2010

Published on January 7, 2015 by David Parker

Cleaning Visio Documents

A Visio user recently showed me a Visio 2010 document that could not be viewed with the Microsoft Visio Viewer. He could open it in Visio okay, but not in the viewer. Well I tried just removing the unused masters and styles, etc (of which there were quite a few), but that did not allow it to be viewed either. Then I tried the document.Clean() method, and, hey presto, the document could then be viewed. Unfortunately, the Clean() method is not available in the UI, so I have created a macro to make it more accessible.

The File / Info / Reduce File Size dialog shows that there are unused masters and styles :

[Read more…]

Published on July 2, 2014 by David Parker

The Visio 2010 MVP Sessions–on Windows Phone 8.1

So, I have now published the Visio 2010 MVP Sessions as a Windows Phone 8.1 app too ( see http://blog.bvisual.net/2014/06/27/the-visio-2010-mvp-sessions-windows-app/ ). This is the second part of my second Universal App.

I had some issues with orientation, and that YouTube videos have to be played via a browser, and not in a XAML media element, however I think that the app provides a handy way to view the 24 videos that Scott , Chris and I made for Microsoft.

The app is available for free from the Windows Phone store ( http://bit.ly/1kdSDwx )… if you have upgraded to the 8.1 OS version.

Published on June 27, 2014 by David Parker

The Visio 2010 MVP Sessions windows app

When the Microsoft marketing machine moved its sights onto the 2013 of Visio, they decided to upload the 24 videos that I, Scott Helmers and Chris Roth did for Visio 2010 to YouTube. YouTube is great, but it is so large that I get lost looking for stuff that I am interested in, so I have created a handy little Windows 8.1 app to bring all of the videos together.

The content is still very relevant for Microsoft Visio 2013, and we cover a wide area of Visio’s capabilities in these short introductory videos. Each one is between 5 and 7 minutes…ish.

You can install the free app from : http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/app/visio-2010-mvp-sessions/60b8e55e-2c64-4563-a349-afa14e47c72b

Get a handy pdf of the session links : http://blog.bvisual.net/2013/07/08/mvp-sessions-for-getting-started-with-visio-2010/

Published on July 8, 2013 by David Parker

MVP Sessions for Getting Started with Visio 2010

Back in June 2012, I announced the Microsoft sponsored MVP Sessions for Visio 2010 (see http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/06/29/mvp-sessions-wheel/ ). Well, Visio 2013 has been released since then, so Microsoft have changed the links for the videos. So, I have created a web page to provide access to them: http://www.visiorules.com/gallery/MVPSessions/MVPSessions.htm

I have also created a pdf file with hyperlinks : http://www.visiorules.com/gallery/MVPSessions/MVPSessionsWheel.pdf

Published on May 21, 2013 by David Parker

Getting the Name of Glued Connection Points

A Visio developer asked me if it is possible to get the name of connection points that a connector is glued to in Visio. Well, it is not possible directly from the ShapeSheet, but is easy if you use a little code.

First of all, I created a simple Block shape with 3 named connection points on either side of it. I added a little text to the block to display the shape name, and to remind me where the named connection points are.

Published on March 31, 2013 by David Parker

Using ODC Files with Visio

I use the Link Data to Shapes wizard in Visio Professional almost everyday, but I have not really bothered to use the Office Data Connections (ODC) files much, probably because there is no easy way of creating them in Visio. However, the Data Connection wizard does allow you to use previously created ODC files. So, I thought I’d document the easiest way I know of creating them … using Excel!

In fact, Excel and Reports can use ODC files too. See http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-excel/archive/2008/10/15/using-office-data-connection-files-odc-and-the-dataconnections-web-part-in-sharepoint-to-specify-external-data-connections-in-newly-created-excel-workbooks.aspx

In Excel, select Data \ From Other Sources \ From Data Connection Wizard …