Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

What’s New in This Release

In this, the second Visio release since it joined the Microsoft Office team, you’ll find a lot that’s familiar, but also much that is new. As previously mentioned, there are several new template categories, including Brainstorming, Business Process, and Charts and Graph (formerly Forms and Charts). Visio 2003 includes the following new shapes and templates:

• Brainstorming shapes

• Business Process shapes

• New Calendar template and shapes

• Improved Organizational Chart

• Improved Space Plan including Visio smart tags Improved Timeline template that includes an expanded Timeline shape

• Basic Network Diagram template with new shapes that include 22 predefined definitions to generate shape reports

• Detailed Network Diagram template with improved shape appearance

• Rack Diagram for laying out rack space requirements

• Improved Web Site Map template

• Windows XP User Interface template

• Improved Electrical Engineering and Building Plan shapes

The following new features enhance the way you work in Visio:

• Search for shapes Now you can search for shapes right from the Visio Shapes window. In fact, if you are online, Visio will even search the Web. You can drag any of the shapes that you find onto your drawing and drop them.

• Personalized shape management You can use the new My Shapes folder to save shapes to either a custom stencil or the supplied Favorites stencil.

• New rotation handles Visio shapes have been given Office-style rotation handles, so that they can be rotated without selecting the rotation tool.

• Multiple shape selection techniques There are three ways to select multiple shapes: You can hold the Shift key to select multiple shapes, use the Lasso tool, or click and drag around the shapes.

• Color schemes The templates that include color schemes now include new options to allow the customization of those schemes. You can make some pretty attractive presentations this way.

• New task panes There are several new task panes that, by default, dock to the right edge of the drawing page. Of course you can position the panes wherever you like by clicking on the left side of the pane header bar and dragging the pane to a new position. Briefly, the new panes are listed here. We cover them in greater detail as we move through the book.

  • Getting Started Displays most recently used drawings.

  • Help Use the table of contents or search for help.

  • Clip Art Displays available clip art.

  • Research Research information on the Internet or your own computer.

  • Search Results Displays results of latest research.

  • New Drawing You can choose to start a new drawing or select a previously saved drawing.

  • Shared Workspace You can share a drawing using SharePoint.

  • Reviewing Mark up or review the comments of others on a review copy of the drawing.

Collaboration in Visio 2003

There is no denying that two heads are better than one. Microsoft understands that, and has done everything possible to make all the Office System applications, including Visio 2003, more collaboration friendly. New collaboration features include the following:

• Document workspace Using Microsoft SharePoint Team Services, users can create document workspaces that allow multiple users to review and modify a document in real time.

• Review Use the Track Markup feature (under the Tools menu) to make and view proposed changes in a drawing. You can e-mail drawings by clicking the E-mail button on the toolbar.

• Microsoft Office Visio Viewer 2003 With the new Visio viewer, people can view Visio drawings through Microsoft Internet Explorer. The viewer can be downloaded from the download section at http://www.microsoft.com.

• SVG Visio now supports Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), a new standard for graphics formats.

• Tablet computer support Visio now supports inking on the tablet PC. Hence you can provide input into Office documents with your own tablet pen.

• Ink Ink allows you to create hand-drawn shapes and insert them or modify and review Visio drawings.

What You Won’t Find in This Release

The Visio team is constantly striving to make Visio a better product. Part of that improvement plan entails dropping features that are either antiquated or seldom used. Other features are improved and morph in to more highly capable features. Below is a list of features that have been discontinued in Visio 2003.

Additionally, the following file types and converters are no longer converted.

• Adobe Illustrator (AI)

• ABC Flow Charter 2.0/3.0/4.0 (AF2/AF3/AF4)

• CorelDRAW 3.0–7.0 (CDR)

• CorelFLOW (CFL)

• Computer Graphics Metafile (CGM)

• Corel Clipart Format (CMX)

• Microstation (DGN)

• MicroGrafx Designer 3.1 (DRW)

• MicroGrafx Designer 6.0 (English only) (DSF)

• Encapsulated PostScript (EPS)

• Initial Graphics Exchange Specification (IGS)

• ZSoft PC Paintbrush (PCX)

• Mac Clipboard (PICT)

• PostScript (PS)

• Text files (TXT)

• Comma Sep. Value (CSV)