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Starting a New Visio
Drawing
Ralph
Grabowski
Before you start drawing with a
pencil, you get a sheet of paper. In the same way, you select New from Visio's File menu
to create a new, blank drawing.
Visio 5.0 lets you start a new drawing in three ways:
- Begin with a template drawing.
- Start with a blank drawing.
- Create a new drawing with a wizard.
In this tutorial, you learn about the three ways of starting
a new drawing.
Starting with a Template
Drawing
In your office, you probably work with many kinds and sizes of paper: plain paper,
memorandums, graph paper, legal size, broadsheet, forms, and so on. In the same way, Visio
provides many kinds of "paper" for creating new drawings. These papers are
called template drawings. A template drawing has some drawing properties set up for you,
such as the size and orientation of the paper, a scale factor, and one or more stencil
collections of shapes. A template drawing has the filename extension of VST, such as
SitePlan.Vst.
Template drawings are so useful that when you start Visio
for the first time, it displays the Choose a Template Drawing dialog box. Depending on
which of the three editions of Visio you have -- Standard, Technical, or Professional --
each comes with a different collection of template files:
- Visio Standard includes templates with for creating drawings
of block diagrams, flowcharts, maps, office layouts, and project timelines.
- Visio Technical adds technically-oriented templates, such as
chemical and petroleum engineering, house and landscape planning, software and network
design, mechanical and electrical engineering, and space planning.
- Visio Professional has all the templates in Standard, plus
additional templates for networks, Internet design, database design, and visual modeling
(software design).
The Home-Bath and Kitchen Plan.Vst template
drawing.
For example, the Home-Bath and Kitchen Plan.Vst template
drawing (with Visio Technical, look for it in the \Visio\Solutions\Aec folder)
automatically sets up these drawing properties:
| Paper: |
8-1/2"
x 11", landscape orientation. |
| Scale: |
1/4" =
1' (notice the foot markings on the horizontal and vertical rulers). |
| Stencils: |
Walls, Shell
and Structure
Home - Cabinets
Home - Bath and Kitchen
Home - Appliance
General - Dimensions, Architectural
General - Annotation
Electrical and Telecom |
| Additional
Toolbar: |
Wall Tools
toolbar (located just above the stencils). |
You are not stuck with the template drawings that
Visio provides. Feel free to modify any template to suit your need; just remember to give
it a different name or store it in another subdirectory. The properties you can save in a
template drawing include:
- Layers, scale, and page settings.
- Snap and glue settings.
- Color palette.
- Shape styles and text styles.
- Print setup.
- Window size and position.
Or, you can create a template drawing from scratch.
Why would you want to make your own template? One reason is that you can create a
consistent look to all your drawings. Templates are an excellent way to affirm corporate
standards. For example, to ensure the corporate logo and copyright statement appear in
every drawing, create a layer with that information, then save the drawing as a template.
Starting with a Blank Drawing
When you choose no template drawing,
Visio starts with a blank drawing with these properties: an 8-1/2"x11" sheet of
paper in portrait orientation, a scale of 1:1, and no stencil or shapes loaded. This is
unlike versions of Visio earlier than 5.0, which loaded the Basic Shapes stencil.
Why would you want to start with a blank drawing? Starting
with a blank drawing is best when you want to create a new drawing from scratch, with no
assistance from Visio's templates or wizards.
Starting with a Wizard
All three Visio packages include wizards.
"Wizard" is a Microsoft term for a dialog box that guides you through the steps
of setting up a preliminary drawing, setting the scale, filling in the title block, and
placing a border around the drawing. Along the way, the wizard prompts you to select
options and type information. Depending on which package of Visio you have, wizards are
available for creating flowcharts, office layouts, organizational charts, project
timelines, and other specialized drawings.
However, I find that there are two distinct disadvantages to
using a wizard.
- I find it becomes tedious answering the wizard's many
questions, then waiting for the time it takes the wizard to compete its work.
- Once the wizard is complete, I find I sometimes end up doing
more work editing the drawing created by the wizard than I would have starting the drawing
from scratch.
Procedure
When you start Visio, it automatically displays the Choose a Template Drawing
dialog box. From this dialog box, you select the name of the template.
You can start a
new drawing anytime you are in Visio using shortcut keys, menu picks or the toolbar icon.
| Shortcut Keys |
Menu |
Toolbar Icon |
| Ctrl+N |
File > New |
 |
Alternative method:
- Select New from the menu bar.
- Select a discipline name from the menu, such as AEC,
Block Diagram, and Business Diagram. (The list varies, depending whether you have Visio
Standard, Technical, or Professional.)
- Select a template name from the list. For example,
under Business Diagram, you can choose from Charts and Graphics, Form Design, and
Marketing Charts and Diagrams.
Visio opens a blank scaled drawing with the
appropriate stencils, ready for you to begin work.
Ralph Grabowski
Other tutorials in this series:
This article was adapted from "Learn Visio 5.0" with permission of
WordWare Publishing, Ltd.
click for publisher's abstract
Learn Visio 5.0
ISBN 1-55622-568-7, 385 pages
Order this book...
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