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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 :

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Linking SQL database on Azure to Visio

Microsoft Visio has many data sources available for Link Data to Shapes, and one of those is SQL Server. Microsoft Azure is increasingly becoming a low-cost, and always available, choice for hosting all sorts of data, and applications, so I thought I would document how easy it is to setup a SQL database on Azure for use with Visio.

Creating the SQL database on Azure

First, you need register for an Azure subscription, and then create a SQL database on a server in a suitable location.

Create Azure Sql database

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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.

Sessions
video

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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.

 

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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 …

DCW_Welcome

 

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Does Adobe Acrobat make better PDF files from Visio?

An export to PDF utility was freely available for Visio 2007, and was built in to Visio 2010. However, I have always been disappointed by the lack of support for Visio layers, Shape Data and multiple hyperlinks per shape in the PDF output. Microsoft have always told me that this is because they have limited control over the public PDF format, as opposed to the proprietary Adobe PDF format (These features are also surprisingly missing from the export to XPS tool, even though this format originated from Microsoft). So, the question is, does Adobe Acrobat make better PDF files from Visio than Microsoft’s free tool?

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