Microsoft® Office Visio® 2007 Step by Step

Finding Shapes for Diagrams

Visio templates open stencils that contain the shapes used most often for a particular diagram type. However, you might want to add shapes to your diagram that aren’t on any of the template’s stencils. For example, in a brainstorming diagram, you might want to include a text callout shape to highlight a topic, but how do you find the shape you need?

It’s easy. In the Shapes window, use the Search For Shapes box to quickly search for shapes on your computer and on the Web. Using this method, you don’t need to open and browse additional Visio stencils—although you could do that if you wanted to familiarize yourself with shapes on different stencils.

Tip

To open a stencil, on the File menu, point to Shapes, point to a category, ...