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My Books

Published on May 15, 2023 by David Parker

My new book on Visualizing Processes with Microsoft Visio has launched

Back in the early 1990s, there was an application called ABC Flowcharter that was the market leader for diagramming business flowcharts, but some of the brains behind Aldus PageMaker saw an opportunity to create something smarter, and left to write the Visio product, with the stated aim to overtake ABC Flowcharter within 2 years. They did it in just 18 months and Visio expanded to cover more types of diagramming, especially organization charts and network diagramming. Visio became the default vector-based, data-diagramming application for the desktop, and so Microsoft acquired the company in 2000, who started to integrate it with Microsoft Office applications. Many imitators on the desktop tried to emulate Visio, but most fell by the wayside. There were constant requests for Visio to work on Apple Macs, but Microsoft resisted making a Mac specific version, and instead started to make Visio work in a web-browser, so it can work anywhere on any modern device. There are literally millions of lines of code on Visio, so it was never going to be straightforward or easy, but now we do have a light edition of Visio provided to all M365 business subscribers, and two extra subscription levels for more features and capabilities. We still have desktop Visio Standard and Professional, but the edition that straddles both the desktop and web is Visio Plan 2. It has some desktop only features delivered via web-services, and an enhanced browser-based editing experience. Visio Plan 2 is the edition for heavy or advanced users, but any of the desktop editions can be viewed as a design studio for content that can be used by the browser users because of Visio’s unique ShapeSheet feature that contains Excel-like formulas to control the properties of the shapes. Almost all of these formulas work in the web browser, but desktop Visio is required to write the formulas initially. This means that powerful customizations are possible without any web-scripting, and achievable by anyone who can write formulas in Excel!

So, this new book focuses on the original driver for Visio, process flowcharts, and explains how the different Visio editions can be used to create, edit, collaborate, comment, present, automate, export them, and finally how to customize them. Find out more at Visualize Complex Processes with Microsoft Visio!

[Read more…] about My new book on Visualizing Processes with Microsoft Visio has launched

Filed Under: Books, Data Visualizer, Ebooks, Process Flows, ShapeSheet Formulas, Visio, Visio for Desktop, Visio for M365, Visio for Web, Visio Plan 1, Visio Plan 2 Tagged With: My Books, Processes, Visio

Published on July 26, 2021 by David Parker

Update of Free Rules Tools for Visio Validation

Microsoft introduced Validation Rules in Visio 2010 Premium, and I was excited enough to write a book about it. Microsoft merged the Premium into the Professional edition in 2013, so I updated my book. I wrote an interface into the Visio Validation API as a free VSTO add-in, called Rules Tools. It was normal to install the 32bit edition of Office back then, but now 64bit is the default, so I have update the setup to detect whether a 32bit or 64bit edition needs to be installed, before continuing.

So now, anyone who has Visio Professional or Visio Plan 2 can use this free tool which provides the only interface available to review, import, export and write Visio Validation rules.

Filed Under: Books, Validation, Visio, Visio for Desktop, Visio Plan 2 Tagged With: My Books, Validation, Visio, Visio Rules

Published on December 17, 2011 by David Parker

Visio Video Filming for Future Viewing

What a week we just had! Microsoft invited three Visio MVPs and book authors to record 24 short videos on Visio. They will be published gradually over the next few months. We converged on Microsoft’s studios in Redmond from Boston, Germany and the UK for two days of intensive filming. It was enlightening, enriching and exhausting. The videos will only be a few minutes long each (apparently most online viewers can only last 90 seconds), but they cover a wide area of Visio uses, and contain a few good productivity tips.

[Read more…] about Visio Video Filming for Future Viewing

Filed Under: MVP, Visio 2010 Tagged With: My Books, Video, Visio

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