Hello, welcome to this super short tutorial on Microsoft Visio, one of the
best tools to make flowcharts, diagrams, technical schematics up to 2D CAD
plans and floorplans! In just 12 minutes we are going to see all the
features you need to know to start with Visio!
Visio is available for Windows OS only under either a perpetual or a
subscription license. There is also an online version of Visio, much
simpler and free to use, that does not require any download and can be used
by MacOS users as well. In this video we are going to use Microsoft Visio
Standard.
As you open Visio the start-up page opens with several options to start
working. Under Home you find all your most recent projects; switch to Open
to browse for specific projects and to New to start from a new one. Choose
Blank Drawing to start from a blank document or pick any ready template,
selecting the correct units between Metric and US Imperial.
The new document opens on the main workspace with the Ribbon bar on top,
collecting all the main tools and features; the Shapes panel on the left
and the main preview on the center where you draw and
edit.
At the bottom browse through the document pages and add others with the
plus button.
If you prefer a dark theme go to File, Options, General, Office Theme.
Before drawing set the page size and properties, especially if you plan to
export or print the document. On Design, Page Setup, adjust the page
orientation, its size across different standards, or go to More Page
Sizes... to define a custom size.
On Design, Backgrounds apply a colored background, any border or title on
your page. These are saved in a new special page called VBackground: any
editing made on it will be applied on all your Visio pages, all at once.
Let's start drawing! You get three different drawings inside Visio:
the shapes, such as simple figures or even complex representations; the
connectors which are wires linking more shapes together and pieces of
text to describe, add details or make titles.
Let's start with the shapes on a new blank page. Open the Home tab and use
any drawing tool on top to drop rectangles, ellipses, lines, arcs and
freehand shapes by clicking and dragging on the page. You can also enable
the Pencil Tool to draw objects depending on how you move your cursor.
On the Draw tab you can also draw freehand with Pens and Highlighters,
adjusting trace color and thickness as needed.
From the Shapes panel you can find several objects ready-to-use within
collections called stencils, shown or hidden depending on the template
chosen. Click on any stencil to open it at the bottom and drag and drop any
shape to add a copy of it in your document. For the complete list of
stencils go to More Shapes.
Make sure to check your project in detail by zooming in and out with your
mouse wheel while holding down the CTRL key.
Visio includes several drawing aids to help you with your drawings. From
the View tab you can enable Rulers on your page, Page Grids or Guides, used
to follow horizontal and vertical directions.
You also get snappings to object points, curves or the page grid itself,
depending on what you set on Visual Aids above. You can also disable
snappings by holding down the ALT key.
Under Home, Connector you can drop wires or connectors to link two shapes
together and show dependence. If you click and drag between two shapes you
create a link connecting the first shape to the second one. You can add
more connectors to show more complex dependence.
Other shapes can show multiple anchors called connection points, which
allow you to choose the exact point where the wire must be attached.
Whereas custom shapes come without any connection point so you may not be
able to add connectors to them. In this case select the object and enable
Connection Point to drop anchors on it. Hold down the CTRL key and click to
add connection points on the shape path or outside of it. You can also
click and drag any anchor to place it correctly. At this point enable the
Connector tool and drop the wires on the new anchors.
You can fully customize any connector. Click and drag any endpoint to
change the wire direction and the anchor to be attached to. You can also
right-click on the wire to change its kind between Straight Connector to
drop a straight wire; Right-Angle Connector to make angles by 90 degrees
and Curved Connector to make curved wires.
With the Text Tool you can drop titles and annotations. Click and drag to
drop a text box and type within the box contours.
From the Home tab set the text font family, size, style, color and
distribution. This is usually applied on the whole text box unless you
select specific text inside it.
This text box is indeed an independent shape: you can add Connector Points
on it to link text with other shapes as seen.
Switch to the Pointer Tool to move, rotate and scale the text box. You can
also double-click on any shape or connector to add some text inside. This
text is not independent and follows the modifications made on the object.
You can place it with the yellow node and edit its properties from the
Home tab.
Enable the Pointer Tool to manage shapes and connectors. Click on any
object to select it and use its nodes to rotate and scale. Click and drag
to move it, getting useful guidelines and spacings as well as snappings you
can avoid with the ALT key down. You can also move horizontally and
vertically with the Shift key.
When you move any shape with connectors these too get updated. If these do
not follow the shape make sure that the wires are attached to any
connection point first.
If you move any object outside the page borders this gets extended if the
Auto Size option is enabled under the Design tab.
If you get objects overlapped you can adjust their order of visibility with
Home, Arrange.
Select any object and right-click on it to cut, copy and paste it. Use
CTRL(and)Z to undo if you make mistakes.
You can also select multiple objects by clicking on these while holding
down the CTRL key. This way you can move, rotate and scale these all at
once.
You can also collect all these objects into a single one by right-clicking
and going to Group, so that you can move and edit these objects all
together.
You can always click once to enter inside the group and edit its inner
components. To remove the group just right-click on it and go to Ungroup.
Besides the Pointer Tool you can use the Freeform Tool to edit lines and
curves of shapes and connectors. Select these and drag nodes and endpoints
to move these and drag the tangent handles to reshape curves properly.
This tool won't work on pen and highlighter paths: for these you need
to switch to the Draw tab.
On Design, Themes you can customize the general document appearance
according to several templates.
You can also customize any object by selecting it and opening the Home tab.
Pick any template from Shape Styles or set Fill color, Line color,
line thickness, line style and endpoints and apply Effects including
shadow, glow and much more! For the complete list of properties right-click
on the shape and go to Format Shape. Check it out!
As you make custom drawings it can be useful to save these for future
Visio projects. Go to More Shapes, New Stencil to create a new collection
and right-click on it to manage and save it with a proper name. At this
point you can drag and drop any shape or even entire groups to save these.
Every time you need them you just have to open your own stencil and drag
these shapes into your new document.
From the Insert tab you can also import other objects such as pictures,
icons, charts and CAD drawings from AutoCAD. Click on Pictures to browse
for any picture and use the Pointer tool to move, rotate and scale these.
From Picture Format apply some color correction, add borders or crop the
image. You can also right-click and go to Format Shape for the complete
properties on the right.
Use Chart to import charts with the templates offered by Microsoft Excel.
To learn more about Excel charts, make sure to watch our dedicated
tutorial!
To save your Visio document go to File, Save As. Visio projects are saved
in a .vsdx file format, giving you the possibility to edit and modify its
content any time.
To render and export the project select the page you want to export and
the right format such as a vector .svg file for InkScape; .dwg to
export to AutoCAD or choose .emf, .jpg, or .png or .pdf to render as an
image or as a printable document.
Make sure to go to Design, Size, Fit to Drawing to resize the page
according to the drawing you have made. This is very useful to get the
maximum quality over your drawings when you render the document into an
image.
You can also select one or multiple objects to export these instead of the
entire page.
To print the document go to File, Print and adjust the options on the left
side including number of copies, pages to print, orientation, size and
color.
Thank you very much for watching this tutorial!! Make sure to check our
YouTube channel and our website to learn more about Microsoft Office and
other outstanding software!!!