If you want to change the general look of your diagram, be sure to start with themes. However, if you need to make specific
changes to a shape or are creating your own library of symbols, Visio
has a full set of formatting tools at your disposal.
1. Changing Line, Fill, and Text Attributes
You can’t help but notice Visio’s formatting
controls. They are similar to what you would find in Word or Excel and
located in similar places. The Home tab on the Ribbon has the Font,
Paragraph, and Shape groups. Right-clicking any shape pops up a
mini-toolbar that gives you quick access to popular formatting
features, along with cascading menus to access just about everything
else.
The best way to get good at formatting is to start a
blank drawing, draw some rectangles, and then start clicking the
controls on the Home Ribbon or right-click the mini-toolbar.
2. Which Formatting Attributes Can Be Edited?
Visual
attributes fall into four formatting groups: Line, Fill, Shadow, and
Text. While the list of possibilities is too long to show here, the
best way to learn them is to play around and experiment.
There are formatting dialogs for each group that
help you to get a good overview of available options, and make many
related changes at once. For Text attributes, use the dialog box
launcher buttons in the lower-right corner of the Font and Paragraph
groups on the Home tab. For Fill, Shadow, and Line dialogs, click the
corresponding drop-down button in the Shape group, then pick the
Options item at the end of the list.
Take a moment to explore these dialogs to see all
the formatting options available. Draw a few rectangles on a blank page
and format the living daylights out of them!
Using Formatting Dialogs to Change Many Settings at Once
1. | Start with a new, blank drawing.
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2. | Draw a rectangle on the page, and type Using Microsoft Visio 2010 on it. Keep the shape selected, but switch back to the Pointer Tool.
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3. | Change
fill formatting for the shape using the Fill dialog. On the Home tab,
in the Shape group, click the Fill drop-down and then choose Options at
the bottom of the list. The Fill dialog appears.
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4. | Choose
different values for color, pattern, transparency, shadow style, shadow
color, shadow pattern, and shadow transparency. After each change,
click Apply and see how the shape changes without leaving the dialog.
Click OK when you are ready to exit.
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5. | Compare
the many options in the Fill dialog to the smaller set that is
available in the Fill drop-down in the Shape group. Right-click the
shape and notice that the same Fill drop-down is available from the
mini-toolbar.
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6. | Notice
that the Ribbon and context menu options give you Live Preview as you
move the mouse over various options. In the dialog, you have more
choices and can change many settings at once, but you don’t get Live
Preview.
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7. | Change
line and shadow formatting similar to how you changed fill attributes
in steps 3 and 4. The Shape group has drop-down buttons for Line and
Shadow; these both have Options at the bottom which launch detailed
dialogs.
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8. | Note
the line and shadow options available directly from the Ribbon and via
right-clicking and compare them to the options available in the dialogs.
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9. | Explore
text formatting options by clicking the dialog box launcher in the Font
or Paragraph groups. You see the Text dialog, which has six different
tabs for formatting the Font, Character, Paragraph, Text Block, Tabs,
and Bullets of your shape’s text.
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10. | Note
that you can format individual words and characters for the shape’s
text. To get into text edit mode, simply double-click the shape or
select the shape and choose the Text tool from the Tools group on the
Home tab. Then you can select portions of the text as you would in Word
and format them.
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