Microsoft Office Visio 2007 Inside Out

What's New in This Release

New features make it easer to use Visio 2007 and easier to get great looking results.

Starting Out

In Microsoft Office Visio 2007, there is a cornucopia of innovative additions that will help you and your diagram reach a level of unexpected perfection.

• Simpler template solutions With template categories such as Business, Flowchart, Network, Schedule, and so on, it is now easier to find just the right template.

• Large template previews Large thumbnail previews and descriptions of each template help you quickly identify the templates that are the appropriate starting point for your diagrams.

• Featured templates For easy access, the most popular Visio 2007 templates within each category are now displayed at the top of each category view.

• Recent templates list It is easier to get to your favorite templates because Visio 2007 now includes a new shortcut for opening your most-recently-used templates.

• Sample diagrams (requires Visio Professional 2007) You can now browse new sample diagrams and data sources to get ideas for creating your own data-driven diagrams.

Looking Sharp

The new Themes feature in Visio 2007 makes choosing colors and effects simpler and less sloppy. Now you can give your diagram the professional touch with one click of the mouse.

• Theme Colors Choose from a set of professionally designed, built-in theme colors, or create your own color scheme to match your company logo and branding. The theme colors that come with Visio 2007 match the theme colors in other Microsoft Office 2007 applications, such as Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word.

• Theme Effects Make your drawings more visually consistent and appealing by applying a unified set of design elements for fonts, fills, shadows, lines, and connectors.

• New templates and shapes Quickly create a variety of diagrams by using new templates, such as the PivotDiagram, Value Stream Map, and ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) templates. (All of these require Visio Professional 2007.) You can also create more dynamic workflows by using the new Work Flow shapes in the Work Flow Diagram template. The Work Flow shapes have a new isometric 3-D style to make your diagrams look better than ever.

Connecting Shapes

The new AutoConnect feature in Visio 2007 takes the work out of connecting shapes. This new feature automatically connects, evenly distributes, and accurately aligns shapes for you, and requires only a couple of clicks.

• Connect shapes as you drag them onto the drawing page When you rest the pointer over a shape on the drawing page, you will notice that blue arrows appear around the shape. When you drag another shape onto one of the blue connection arrows, Visio 2007 automatically connects the two shapes, distributes them evenly, and aligns them for you.

• Connect shapes after you click a shape on a stencil There is also now an even faster way to connect shapes. Select a shape in the Shapes window, rest the pointer over a shape on the drawing page, and then click the blue connection arrow on the side of the shape to which you want the new shape to connect. Visio 2007 automatically adds and connects the shape, distributes it evenly, and aligns it for you. In this way, you can quickly connect a whole series of shapes, such as those in a flowchart.

• Connect shapes that are already on the drawing page You can even automatically connect two shapes that are both already on the drawing page. Simply click the blue connection arrow on one shape that is closest to the other shape that you want to connect it to.

Linking Diagrams to Data

Visio 2007 now takes data connectivity further by making it much easier and faster to connect a data source to any diagram-flowchart, organization chart, network diagram, space plan, and so on-that is created by using any version of Visio 2007. You can automatically connect diagrams to a wide range of external data sources. A new Data menu and Data toolbar keep everything that you need within reach.

• Easily connect diagrams to commonly used data sources Let the new Data Selector Wizard guide you through the task of connecting to Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server™, and other commonly used external data sources to integrate data into your diagrams. You can select custom data ranges, filter the data that you want to import, and even link diagrams to more than one data source.

• View data from within Visio 2007 After you have connected your data to your diagram, you can view the data by using the new External Data window.

• Build your diagram by dragging rows of data onto a blank drawing page Select a shape in the Shapes window, and then drag a row of data from the new External Data window onto the drawing page. Visio 2007 simultaneously adds the shape to the page and associates the data with the shape.

• Link data to individual shapes in existing diagrams Drag a row of data from the new External Data window onto a shape in your diagram to manually link the data to the shape. After you link data to a shape, you can see the data in the newly renamed Shape Data window (formerly called the Custom Properties window).

• Automatically link data to shapes Save time by using the new Automatic Link Wizard to link the shapes in a Visio 2007 diagram to rows of data in an external data source.

• Easily refresh all of the data in your diagram Use the new Refresh Data feature to automatically refresh the data in your diagram-no manual reentry required. Easily deal with any conflicts in the new Refresh Conflicts task pane. You can even schedule the refresh so that it happens automatically as often as you want it to.

Formatting

Integrating data into diagrams is only the first step in transforming your diagrams into powerful tracking tools. Now, with Visio 2007, you can more easily display and customize the look of data in your diagrams to help get your message across.

In the new Data Graphics task pane, just click the format that presents the data the way that you want it in your diagram. You can use progress bars for variable data, arrows for data that increases or decreases, and stars for ranked data. You don't need to format any of this yourself-Visio handles the formatting for you.

Also, data values can now control the color and appearance of a shape. You don't need to format them yourself, either. You need only specify the conditions under which the formatting appears.

Using Pivotdiagrams

Visio 2007 provides a new type of diagram-the pivotdiagram. Pivotdiagrams show data as a collection of shapes arranged in a tree-like table structure that helps you to analyze and summarize data in a visual, easy-to-understand format. Using pivotdiagrams, you can visually explore your business data, analyze it, drill down into it, and create multiple views of it to gain deeper insight into the information. Easily identify key issues, track trends, and flag exceptions by using a library of shapes that are designed specifically for tracking data. You can even insert a pivotdiagram into any other Visio 2007 diagram to provide a complementary view of the data.

• Generate Visio 2007 pivotdiagrams within Microsoft Project 2007 From within Project 2007, you can now report on resource and task data.

• Generate Visio 2007 pivotdiagrams from Microsoft Office SharePoint lists From SharePoint lists, you can now report on issues and tasks and track workflow. (A Microsoft SharePoint Web site is required.)

Integrating Safely with Other Products

Visio 2007 lets you safely integrate your diagrams with other tools.

• View Visio diagrams attached to e-mail messages From within Microsoft Outlook, you can now preview Visio diagrams attached to e-mail even if you don't have Visio installed. (Microsoft Outlook 2007 is required.)

• Save Visio 2007 diagrams in PDF and XPS file formats Easily share your Visio 2007 diagrams with everyone, including people who don't have Microsoft Office, by saving your diagrams as PDF or XPS files.

• Prevent people from viewing sensitive information in your Visio 2007 diagrams You can quickly remove comments, reviewer markups, and other types of personal information. To do so click File, Remove Hidden Information. On the Personal Information tab, place a check in the Remove These Items From The Document box.

• Minimize the size of Visio 2007 drawing files Remove information that you don't need anymore, such as drawing previews, unused master shapes, and unused themes. To do so, click File, Remove Hidden Information. On the File Size Reduction tab, select the options you desire.