Visio® 2007 For Dummies®

Chapter 7. Perfecting Your Drawings

In This Chapter

• Defining measuring and placement terms

• Using the drawing grid

• Trying out the dynamic grid

• Setting a drawing scale

• Snapping shapes into place

• Using your rulers

• Using guides on the drawing page

• Lining up shapes the way you want

You may or may not feel the need to have everything neat and clean when it comes to your diagrams, but when you need to straighten things up, Visio provides everything you need to do it. This chapter shows you how to use Visio's tools to measure, place, and line up elements in a drawing. These tools make “perfecting” tasks easy and save you time. Don't feel that you must use all these ideas. Choose the ideas that make the most sense for your particular drawing.

Visio has a lot of functionality packed into a very small package. With all the functionality, some people become overwhelmed by this chapter in the book because they think they have to do everything the book has discussed. Nothing is farther from the truth. Think of this book as the menu and you can choose the items you want. If all you need is a sketch that no one else will ever see, you really don't need to place shapes precisely. That's the point of Visio: You can make diagrams as simple or as complex as you need them. In short, you can use Visio today; don't let the features you really don't need overwhelm you.

All about Measurements and Placement Tools

This section gives you a preview of the terms used in this chapter. You can use this list to understand ...