Arrangement of shapes in MS Visio - A guide to management

The arrangement of shapes in MS Visio can be intuitive, but the possibilities for managing and customizing your drawings are enormous. By familiarizing yourself with the various features and tools, you can quickly create an efficient and precise diagram. This guide will help you to optimally position, group, and adjust your shapes.

Key Takeaways

• Grouping shapes allows you to move and modify multiple objects together.
• You can control the arrangement of shapes by moving them to the front or back.
• There are various methods for selecting shapes, including lasso and marquee selection.
• Shapes can be automatically aligned and mirrored to create harmonious drawings.
• It is possible to modify a shape within a selection without repositioning it.

Step-by-Step Guide

To effectively manage the arrangement of shapes in Visio, follow these steps:

To get started, open your drawing in MS Visio and add some new shapes. For example, you can use a heptagon and a triangle. To do this, navigate to the Home tab. Here, you can select the necessary shapes from the Shapes panel and place them in your drawing.

Once you have positioned your shapes, you can connect or group them together. Grouping means you can select multiple shapes and move them together or resize them. To do this, select both shapes by holding the Ctrl key and clicking on the shapes. Then, you can choose the "Group" option from the menu or use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + G.

An exciting way to customize your shapes is to change their fill color. In this example, you change the fill color of the heptagon from blue to orange. This creates a visually appealing representation and highlights the shapes.

Now that both shapes are selected, they can be grouped. You have the option to select the shapes using the Ctrl + A shortcut and then group them using Ctrl + Shift + G. Once the shapes are grouped, you can move or resize them proportionally.

If you want to ungroup the shapes, you can also do so through the menu bar or the Ctrl + Shift + U shortcut. This way, you can again edit the shapes individually.

A useful feature is selecting by a specific shape type. You can also sort shapes by roles and layers or draw a marquee to select multiple shapes. This makes work easier in complex drawings where many objects are present.

If you have selected two shapes, you can rearrange the shapes. An example of this is moving a blue shape to the background. You can right-click on it or use the Ctrl + Shift + B shortcut. To bring it back to the foreground, use Ctrl + Shift + F.

To change the positioning of your shapes, you can simply rotate or mirror them. Select the shapes and then go to the alignment options. You can rotate them 90 degrees to the right or left, or even mirror them vertically and horizontally.

Another feature is the ability to automatically align the shapes. There are various options available to align the objects in relation to each other. You can align them left, center, or right, as well as vertically.

Finally, I want to mention the "Change Shape" function. This allows you to transform a selected shape into another shape without having to reposition it. For example, if you want to turn a triangle into a pentagon, simply click on "Change Shape" and select the new shape. The format will be adjusted accordingly.

Summary

Effective management of the arrangement of shapes in MS Visio is crucial for creating precise and appealing diagrams. This guide has provided you with a variety of techniques to quickly adjust and optimize your designs.