Visio® 2007 Bible

Chapter 12. Building Block Diagrams

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Choosing the right Block Diagram template

• Exploring Block Diagram shapes

• Creating basic block diagrams

• Modifying the appearance of block diagrams

• Creating hierarchical diagrams

• Constructing 3-D block diagrams

• Building onion diagrams

Visio block diagrams are the workhorses of the diagram world—easy to create and yet able to communicate an astounding variety of ideas. Block diagrams help illustrate flow within processes as well as the structure and relationships for all sorts of elements, such as ideas, concepts, designs, business units, manufacturing components, causes of problems, and more.

In Visio, you can create simple diagrams using basic shapes or produce eye-catching diagrams for presentations with 3-D shapes using perspective. In addition, the Visio Block Diagram stencil includes shapes to develop more specialized arrangements, such as hierarchical trees or onion diagrams. In this chapter, you'll learn how to create different types of Visio block diagrams and configure your Block Diagram shapes.

Note

In Visio 2007, the three Block Diagram templates (Basic Diagram, Block Diagram, and Block Diagram with Perspective) have moved to the General category instead of residing in their own Block Diagram category as in Visio 2003.

Exploring the Block Diagram Templates

The Visio Block Diagram templates are some of the most popular templates because workers from any industry can communicate their ideas to their colleagues using Visio techniques ...