Tripp Lite Uses Visio Graphics for Publications

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Tripp Lite Visio shape of a cooling unitThe best way to extend the value of any asset is to use it and re-use if for multiple purposes. This goes for Visio shapes just as well as any other type of content such as images, text articles, etc.

We produce Visio shapes for Tripp-Lite, a leading manufacturer of products that power, connect and protect computers and other electronics. While Visio is a 2-dimensional drawing program, it is …Continue reading

Free Visio People Stencil

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Visio shape created from MS Office clipartIn our previous post we discussed how to embellish your Visio drawings with clipart… you’re not restricted to the stencils that Visio provides. We’ve created a FREE Visio People stencil that you can download from www.shapesource.com by clicking on the image below. You’ll be asked to open an account so that we can manage your download but don’t worry… we won’t share your information with any other parties.

As explained in our previous article, you can access …Continue reading

Highlight Your Visio Diagrams with Clipart

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Sample from the free People stencilAt Visimation we often receive requests to produce compelling diagrams for work or information flows. Of course we could simply use the stencils included with Visio, but we can do much better by adding other eye-catching graphics to provide more information in an attractive way.

So today we’re going to discuss how to spruce up your Visio diagrams with various kinds of graphics that are easily obtainable. We’ve also …Continue reading

Tips About Visio Connection Points

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Connecting Visio shapesOne of Visio’s most helpful features is the ability to snap and glue objects together with Connection Points. These are the little blue “x” symbols that you can see on many pre-made Visio shapes that come with the product or from other sources such as www.ShapeSource.com. Here we’ll discuss how to insert additional connection points in Visio shapes that you have downloaded or created yourself. While the basic operation is quite simple, we’ll explain what to watch out for so …Continue reading

Customizing the Title Block in Visimation QuotePix

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QuotePix report in Excel

Many technical drawings require a title block. There are various ways to construct a title block and to automate its contents. We’ll discuss some useful methods in the context of one of our Visio add-ons.

Visimation’s QuotePix Visio add-on generates bill of materials (BOM) reports from your Visio drawings such as the adjacent sample. It has many task-easing features such as a BOM window that dynamically shows quantities …Continue reading

Free Xbox 360 Visio Stencil

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Xbox 360 Visio ShapesWe’ve created a Microsoft Xbox 360 shape that you can download free from ShapeSource.com. It’s a useful demonstration of the quality and features of Visio network equipment shapes produced by Visimation. There are 4 master shapes on the stencil: Front, Rear, Perspective, and All. The All shape provides a right click menu for toggling between the 3 views. We did this to show a couple of options… separate master shapes for each view or one master containing all views.

The …Continue reading

Architectural Site Plans with Visio

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Barry Milliken is a practicing Registered Architect with extensive computer aided design (CAD) experience. He uses Visio for most of his design work because it’s an easy and cost effective 2D graphics program. Barry created a custom solution for drawing site plans in Visio and has partnered with Visimation to offer it as a Visio add-on product called visiSitePlan.

VisiSitePlan contains several stencils with intelligently programmed shapes that automate a variety of drawing tasks. The beauty of using Visio for these kinds of plans is that you can more easily create very colorful …Continue reading

Linking from Visio shapes to more information

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ShapeLink_TrippLite_smallTo get the most value from Visio it’s important to understand how Visio shapes can be much more than clipart when properly designed. The shapes can be programmed through their ShapeSheets to behave in ways that will automate and facilitate the drawing process. One of the most powerful behaviors is the ability to link to external information via the Web through specially designed Hyperlinks. In other words, we can give you the ability to simply click on the shape and gain …Continue reading

5 things you may not know about MapShapes

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Our MapShapes have been very popular since we introduced them in 2008. Now that we’ve posted two articles on how to use Visimation MapShapes to create maps and visualize data, I just want to summarize by responding to 5 most frequently asked questions we’ve received about MapShapes. I hope this information helps you to determine if MapShapes will be valuable to you in your work:

What versions of MapShapes are available and what versions of Visio are supported?

US_China_thumbWe currently offer …Continue reading

Visimation MapShapes illustrate data in Visio 2007

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USCensus2010_dataWhile it’s useful just to view geographic maps in Visio, the information becomes even more valuable when linked to data in Visio 2007. We’ll show you how to do this using Visimation MapShapes and you can use similar techniques to link data with any Visio 2007 diagram.

First, where do you find good data? Businesses that collect data about their operations or customers can link those data to Visio if they are stored in a structured data file like Excel, Access, SQL Server, …Continue reading