Data Graphics

Published on November 3, 2012 by David Parker

US Election Special–Vector Visio 2003 – 2010 Icons

Following on from my previous post, http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/11/02/us-election-special-vector-visio-2013-icons/, I have saved the stencil that was generated in Visio 2013 back to Visio 2003 – 2010 format … and, guess what? All of the new Bezier Curves got automatically translated to Nurbs, which means they work! (Except for themes … but they can be coloured)

They can be downloaded from : tp://sdrv.ms/TlzoEB

Perhaps someone would like to make Data Graphic icons from them ? : http://blog.bvisual.net/2012/04/19/make-your-own-visio-data-graphic-icons-sets-automatically/

Published on September 3, 2012 by David Parker

Using Visio Stacked Bar Charts

A Visio user asked recently about data binding a table like the following as a stacked chart. The question was a little imprecise about how, so I shall present a few alternatives.

Region	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4
Rg1	45	12	35	45
Rg2	12	24	45	36
Rg3	78	36	45	71

Firstly, I entered the table in Sheet1 of a new Excel workbook and saved it.

Published on July 11, 2012 by David Parker

Selecting Nodes in Visio PivotDiagrams

Microsoft Visio 2007 introduced PivotDiagrams to Visio Professional, and continues unchanged in Visio 2010 (see http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/visio-help/create-a-pivotdiagram-HA010357089.aspx ). These diagrams are a great way to analyse and visualize data by allowing you to breakdown data in a similar manner to PivotTables and PivotCharts in Excel. Any one who has both Microsoft Project and Visio installed will have seen that all of the extra diagram reports are in fact Visio PivotDiagrams. However, I have always found that selecting the nodes you want is difficult. In this article I will explain the problem and provide a solution … a new free add-in called PdSelect.

Update : Added new features 20 Jul 2012

In the following example PivotDiagram, I used the built-in OrgData Excel workbook as the data source. This example workbook is normally used to demonstrate the OrgChart Wizard, but I have used it to provide an alternative breakdown by Department / Reports_To / Name.

[Read more…]

Published on July 5, 2012 by David Parker

Automating Page.DropLegend in Visio 2010

Visio 2007 introduced Data Graphics but, in my opinion, didn’t provide any automatic legends for the icons and colour by value options. That is why I wrote DataLegends (see http://www.bvisual.net/Products/DataLegends.aspx ) as an add-in for Visio 2007 several years ago. This oversight was remedied in Visio 2010 when Microsoft introduced their own legends (which were not totally dissimilar to my own), and also added a method (Page.DropLegend) for programmers to automate this task.

Published on June 29, 2012 by David Parker

MVP Sessions wheel

I wasn’t sure whether to call it a wheel or a clock-face, but since there are 24 MVP Visio 2010 sessions (see http://visio.microsoft.com/mvpsessions ) I decided on a wheel … so in this blog I present my alternative interface into these sessions, created in Visio of course!

I created an Excel workbook in which I listed all of the sessions, their descriptions, and links to the video and any supporting files. I then created the wheel diagram, and used Link Data to Shapes to automatically add Shape Data rows and hyperlinks to each shape, and Data Graphics to automatically colour each shape.

Finally, I saved the Visio page as web pages (VML, XAML and SVG format output), and as pdf.

Open the VML web output : http://www.bvisual.net/resources/mvpsessionsIE.htm

Open the SVG web output : http://www.bvisual.net/resources/mvpsessions.htm

Open the XAML web output : http://www.bvisual.net/resources/mvpsessionsX.htm

Open the Visio file : http://sdrv.ms/NYHH8V

Open the Excel file : http://sdrv.ms/OI3EKU

Open the pdf : http://sdrv.ms/OI2i2I

UPDATE : see http://blog.bvisual.net/2013/07/08/mvp-sessions-for-getting-started-with-visio-2010/

Published on April 22, 2012 by David Parker

Adding the Sixth Legend Icon in Visio 2010

In my previous two articles, I described how to have 6 icons in a Data Graphic Icon Set, and provided some VBA code to make your own icons sets from existing Visio shapes or images. One thing that I overlooked was the Insert Legend command in Visio 2010, because it does not add the sixth icon automatically, so this blog describes how to add it. As a side effect, the code also enables the legend labels of icon and CBV (Color By Value) items to be edited.

When you use the Insert Legend command, it examines the Data Graphics used on the active page, to create legends for each Icon Set or Color By Value settings that it finds. Closer examination of the legend shapes, shows that an instance of the Icon Set master shape is added for each of the icons found.