A fish out of water: How to Add connector points on Visio Stencils

A fish out of water: How to Add connector points on Visio Stencils

In the last blog post I spoke about how to add, or fix, text annotation bellow the shapes and how you can do it in a reusable way. On this blog post, we will be addressing another top complaint regarding my Microsoft Integration, Azure, BAPI, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack for Visio package: Connector points.

A connection point is a special point on a shape that you can “glue” connectors and other shapes to. When you glue a connector or shape to a connection point, they stay connected, even if one of the shapes is moved.

Add a connection points on Visio Stencils

Connection points become visible when you try to connect one shape to another. You see a shape’s connection points when you hover near the shape with the Connector Tool or drag the endpoint of any connector or line near a shape that has connection points.

Add a connection points on Visio Stencils

if the shape you want to glue a connector to does not have a connection point where you want it, you can add one.

  • Select the shape.
  • On the Home tab, in the Tools group, click the Connection Point tool Button image.
Add a connection points on Visio Stencils
  • If connection points are not visible, on the View tab, in the Visual Aids group, select the Connection Points checkbox.
  • Press Ctrl and click where you want to add a connection point. The new connection point is automatically selected after you place it.
  • On the Home tab, in the Tools group, click Pointer Tool Select Objects to resume normal editing.
Add a connection points on Visio Stencils

Tips and Tricks – Fix or Add connector points on Visio Stencils (Video)

The post A fish out of water: How to Add connector points on Visio Stencils appeared first on SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG.

A fish out of water: How to fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils

A fish out of water: How to fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils

I don’t consider myself a master of Visio, although I use it a lot to make my solution diagrams or system architectures and have already been considered Visio MVP for a year for my contributions to this product. As you may know, I create several years ago a Microsoft Integration, Azure, BAPI, Office 365 and much more Stencils Pack for Visio that I maintain until today (the last update was 4 days ago). And one of the tops complain is about text annotations: be able as a standard behavior to add text annotation bellow the shapes rather than on top that is the default of most shapes present in this package.

Well, luckly there is, the only problem is that there are so many items to change in this collection that this will take some time to finish, nevertheless I already start to work on this and the first set is already fixed.

This blog and video will show you how to fix this issue and maybe you can join me and contribute on this GitHub project and help me speed up this process of fixing this issue.

Fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils

Click on the shape that you want and type something. if the text is on top of the shape follow this steps:

Fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils
  1. On the Home tab, in the Tools group, click the Text Block tool Text Block button.
  2. Drag and resize the text block and put it in the desired position, normally bellow the shape.
Fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils
  1. On the Home tab, in the Tools group, click the Pointer Tool Pointer button .

After you switch back to the Pointer Tool Pointer button, the text keeps the same position relative to the shape. If you use the Pointer Tool to drag the text, the shape will also move, even if the text is no longer on the shape.

Tip and tricks – Fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils (video)

The post A fish out of water: How to fix Text annotations on Visio Stencils appeared first on SANDRO PEREIRA BIZTALK BLOG.