In a previous blog post , we explained how Visio 2010 ships with a unique single image architecture. This post explains how to deploy the three different editions of Visio 2010, and how to change the edition of Visio 2010 after you have already deployed it. In particular, the following scenarios are covered: Visio 2010 has not yet been deployed, and you want to deploy Visio Standard 2010 or Visio Professional 2010 Visio 2010 has already been deployed, and you want to change the edition of Visio 2010...

For this blog post, we put together a list of some of our favorite Visio tips & tricks. Learn these to save time and improve the look of your diagrams. Quickly create evenly spaced shapes Let’s say you’d like to make a grid of shapes like the following: To create this, first make a copy of the individual shape (e.g. using Control+Drag): Then, press Control+Y to repeat that operation: In a similar manner, you can then copy this row multiple times to create a grid. Keep shapes aligned...

Visio has several features that are designed to make it easy to create a diagram quickly. Here are three examples of ways to help you create a simple flowchart in under a minute. Example 1: Capture a flow quickly Let’s assume you have a pretty clear idea of what the steps are that you want to diagram and the order that you want them in, so all you need to do is capture the flow quickly. Once you drop your first shape you can use the AutoConnect feature to fill in the rest of the diagram quickly...

Saul Candib, a Microsoft technical writer for Visio, is writing a series of posts that highlight new members of the Visio 2010 object model on the Office Client Developer Content blog. In the first article, Saul shows how to use the Page.Dropconnected method to add a shape to the page, and connect it to an existing shape at the same time: Use the Page.DropConnected method to connect a shape dropped on the page in Visio 2010 The second article explores how to use the Page.LayoutChangeDirection to...

We on the Visio product team receive lots of interesting questions from Visio users through our blog’s contact form . In this post, we’ll share our answers to several questions that we thought would be of interest to our blog readers. Q: I installed Visio 2010, but the BPMN shapes appear to be missing. Where can I find them? A: The BPMN shapes are part of Visio Premium 2010. You can check what edition you have by going to File > Help and looking in the top right. Here is a link to...

The Visio team would like to congratulate Visio MVP David Parker on his new book, Microsoft Visio 2010: Business Process Diagramming and Validation . This book provides an in-depth coverage of creating custom validation rules in Visio 2010. After reading Microsoft Visio 2010: Business Process Diagramming and Validation , a few key things were apparent. First, this book covers a variety of topics. The book begins with an overview of process management in Visio 2010 and introduces Visio users to an...

The new Containers feature in Visio 2010 is great for adding structure and organization to Visio diagrams. In this post, we’ll walk through the creation of one diagram, the strategy map , which is easy to make using containers. The strategy map A strategy map is a way for companies to document their primary strategic objectives. It visually shows the goals being pursued by an organization and the relationships between these goals. Commonly, a strategy map is part of the documentation associated...

Over the past few weeks Microsoft has released a ton of resources to help administrators and end-users get started with Visio Services. This article summarizes all the online resources for Visio Services in one place. Visio Services is a new feature in SharePoint 2010 that allows you to view and share dynamic, data driven diagrams. For a quick refresher on Visio Services, see this blog post. Administrator Videos To help administrators setup and configure Visio Services, we’ve put up a set of...

Microsoft has published a new technical article on MSDN about the Structured Diagram capabilities of Visio 2010. Structured Diagrams help you organize the contents of your diagrams using intuitive, logical relationships between shapes. These capabilities are exposed as the Containers, Lists, and Callouts features in Visio 2010. The article covers these topics: Overview of the Containers, Lists, and Callouts features from an end-user perspective Details for creating or customizing your own Structured...

The Visio team is pleased to announce the release of two new white papers which will help Visio Services administrators choose and configure the right external data authentication mechanism for their data connected diagrams. Data Authentication for Visio Services : This paper provides an overview of the advantages, drawbacks and applications of the various authentication mechanisms available to Visio Services, namely: Kerberos, Secure Store Service and the Unattended Account. The paper also walks...