Visio® 2007 For Dummies®

Part IV. Advancing Your Knowledge of Visio

In this part . . .

This part of the book assumes that you've become confident in your Visio skills. You're probably more than a casual user — but there's still more you can do to become the resident expert. In this part, you uncover the real power of Visio: its programmability. You don't have to be a techie programmer‐type to benefit from this feature. However, you do have to be ready to create your own stencils, master shapes, and templates.

You find out how to store data in shapes and discover how storing data lets you generate all types of reports. If you work in a group that shares Visio drawings, you'll find Visio 2007's annotating and reviewing features extremely useful. Then, take advantage of the capability to share Visio drawings with other programs.

Most important for any organization with databases is that Visio 2007 provides a new way to use data in drawings. You can use the data to change the appearance of shapes and even analyze them in Visio. This part helps you make use of this new feature to create impressive drawings that automatically update their information.