Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Create snazzy-looking charts and diagrams that get your point across with the powerful and popular Visio drawing and diagramming software. Add a whole new level of sophistication to your business documents (from flowcharts that really flow to terrific technical schematics) with Visio 5 and Visio 5 For Dummies, your fast and friendly guide to making the most of the standard, technical, and professional editions of this handy tool for creating visual aids for all occasions.

Inside Visio 5 For Dummies, you'll discover quick and easy ways to insert Visio illustrations into your Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files in order to boost the impact of your reports and presentations. Use the Visio wizards and SmartShapes to save time and trouble, put the program's stencils to work with an exclusive pictorial index of the most popular stencils, and get the hang of Visio shapes as you customize them to suit the project at hand. Master advanced Visio techniques, such as connecting drawings to databases, and explore all the ways to integrate Visio into your Web pages. Find all this information here, packed inside this indispensable plain-English guide!

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction (p. 1)
• About This Book (p. 1)
• About the Author (p. 1)
• How to Use This Book (p. 2)
• Concentrate on these parts (p. 2)
• Skip these parts if you want (p. 2)
• How This Book Is Organized (p. 3)
• Part I Starting with Visio 5 Basics (p. 3)
• Part II Creating Basic Drawings (p. 3)
• Part III Customizing Your Work (p. 3)
• Part IV For the Die-hard Visio Junkie: Using More Advanced Scuff (p. 3)
• Part V The Part of Tens (p. 4)
• Appendix (p. 4)
• How This Book Works (p. 4)
• Icons Used in This Book (p. 5)
• Assumptions (p. 5)
• Part I Starting with Visio 5 Basics (p. 7)
• Chapter 1 Visio 101 (p. 9)
• Getting the Scoop (p. 9)
• Who's using Visio and why? (p. 10)
• Examining the four Visio products (p. 10)
• Getting Familiar with Visio Lingo (p. 11)
• Making your drawings extraordinary (p. 12)
• Getting In and Out of Visio (p. 13)
• Starting Visio (p. 13)
• Opening additional stencils (p. 14)
• Saving a drawing (p. 16)
• Saving a workspace (p. 17)
• Opening a saved drawing or workspace (p. 17)
• Closing Visio (p. 19)
• Working Onscreen with Visio (p. 19)
• Moving and arranging stencils (p. 20)
• Working with more than one drawing (p. 21)
• Displaying and hiding toolbars (p. 22)
• Checking out the menu(s) (p. 22)
• Getting help when you need it (p. 23)
• Chapter 2 Hot Off the Press: Printing (p. 25)
• Understanding Printing Terms (p. 25)
• How Printing Works with Visio (p. 26)
• Previews: They Aren't Siskel and Ebert! (p. 27)
• Preparing Oversize Drawings for Printing (p. 30)
• Making Adjustments (p. 31)
• Changing margin settings (p. 33)
• Centering a drawing (p. 33)
• Reducing and enlarging drawings (p. 34)
• Printing Your Documents (p. 35)
• Adding Headers and Footers to a Drawing (p. 36)
• Part II Creating Basic Drawings (p. 39)
• Chapter 3 Getting into Shape (p. 41)
• What's in a Shape? (p. 41)
• Open or closed shapes (p. 42)
• One- or two-dimensional shapes (p. 43)
• Dragging Shapes into Your Drawing (p. 45)
• Selecting Shapes (p. 46)
• Moving, Copying, Stamping, and Deleting Shapes (p. 47)
• Moving shapes (p. 47)
• Copying and pasting shapes (p. 48)
• Stamping shapes (p. 48)
• Deleting shapes (p. 49)
• Handling Handles, Endpoints, and Other Stuff (p. 49)
• Control handles (p. 51)
• Control points (p. 52)
• Vertices (p. 52)
• Rotation handles (p. 54)
• Eccentricity handles (p. 55)
• Connection points (p. 56)
• Padlocks (p. 56)
• Sizing Up Your Shapes (p. 58)
• Finding the Shapes That You Want (p. 58)
• Chapter 4 Say What? Incorporating Text (p. 61)
• Adding Text to a Drawing (p. 61)
• Editing Text (p. 64)
• Text Manipulations (p. 65)
• Copying and pasting without the glue (p. 66)
• Moving a text block (p. 66)
• Resizing a text block (p. 68)
• Changing the lineup (p. 68)
• Margins: Finding some breathing room (p. 72)
• Picking up the tab (p. 74)
• Creating bulleted lists (p. 76)
• Creating numbered lists (p. 77)
• Setting the indentation and spacing of text (p. 78)
• Changing the Way Your Text Looks (p. 79)
• Adding a colorful background (p. 80)
• Copying formatting to other text (p. 82)
• Rotating text (p. 82)
• Chapter 5 Connecting Shapes (p. 85)
• Figuring Out Connectors (p. 85)
• Working with Connection Points (p. 87)
• Gluing Connectors to Shapes (p. 88)
• Figuring out if glue is dynamic or static (p. 88)
• Determining your glue type (p. 91)
• Switching from one glue to another (p. 91)
• Setting glue options (p. 92)
• Adding Connectors to Shapes (p. 93)
• Connect shapes as you drag shapes (p. 94)
• Using the Connector tool to draw connectors (p. 96)
• Using the Connector tool and the Ctrl key (p. 97)
• Using the Connect Shapes tool (p. 97)
• Dragging connector shapes into your drawing (p. 100)
• Pulling connectors from shapes (p. 100)
• Handling Connectors That Cross Paths (p. 101)
• Using Routable Connectors and Placeable Shapes (p. 103)
• Using Auto Layout for Connected Drawings (p. 105)
• Part III Customizing Your Work (p. 109)
• Chapter 6 Making Your Drawings Precisely Right (p. 111)
• Checking Out Your Options (p. 111)
• Using the Drawing Grid (p. 113)
• Setting Your Scale (p. 115)
• Snapping Shapes into Place (p. 117)
• Measuring Up with Rulers (p. 120)
• Using Guides to Guide You (p. 123)
• Creating guide lines (p. 124)
• Creating guide points (p. 124)
• Aligning and Distributing Shapes (p. 126)
• Chapter 7 Shape Up! (p. 129)
• Drawing Your Own Shapes (p. 129)
• Using the Line tool (p. 129)
• Using the Pencil and Arc tools (p. 132)
• Using the Freeform tool (p. 134)
• Using the Ellipse and Rectangle tools (p. 135)
• Reshaping Shapes (p. 135)
• Moving and adding vertices (p. 136)
• Moving control points (p. 138)
• Rotating Shapes (p. 140)
• Flipping Shapes (p. 144)
• Creating Shapes the Fun Way (p. 145)
• Uniting shapes (p. 146)
• Combining shapes (p. 147)
• Fragmenting shapes (p. 149)
• Intersecting shapes (p. 150)
• Subtracting shapes (p. 151)
• Give Your Shapes a Makeover (p. 152)
• Changing line style (p. 152)
• Adding fill color, pattern, and shadow (p. 154)
• Do it again, please (p. 156)
• How do I get rid of all this formatting? (p. 156)
• Arranging Shapes (p. 157)
• To group or not to group (p. 157)
• Rearranging your stacks (p. 158)
• Chapter 8 Working with Pages (p. 161)
• The Role of the Template (p. 162)
• Reorienting a Page (p. 162)
• Choosing a Standard Page Size (p. 164)
• Setting a Custom Page Size (p. 165)
• Another Page, Please (p. 167)
• Adding and deleting pages (p. 167)
• Getting from one page to another (p. 169)
• Show me all your pages! (p. 170)
• Reordering pages (p. 171)
• Viewing on the Big Screen (p. 172)
• What's in a Background? (p. 172)
• Creating and assigning a background page (p. 174)
• Displaying a background page (p. 175)
• Editing a background page (p. 175)
• Rotating Pages (p. 176)
• Chapter 9 Love That Layered Look (p. 179)
• Some Essential Facts about Layers (p. 180)
• How Layering Works (p. 181)
• Using the View Toolbar (p. 182)
• Adding a Layer or Removing One? (p. 182)
• Renaming a Layer (p. 184)
• Hiding a Layer (p. 185)
• Assigning Shapes to Layers (p. 186)
• Activating Layers (p. 187)
• Using Layers on Background Pages (p. 188)
• Protecting Layers from Changes (p. 188)
• Assigning a Color to a Layer (p. 189)
• Selecting Layers to Print (p. 191)
• Snap and Glue Options for Layers (p. 192)
• Chapter 10 Save Time with Visio Wizards (p. 193)
• What's a Wizard and Why Do I Want One? (p. 193)
• Discovering What Wizards Can Really Do (p. 194)
• Finding the Wizard That You Want (p. 196)
• Using a Wizard (p. 198)
• Part IV For the Die-hard Visio Junkie: Using More Advanced Stuff (p. 201)
• Chapter 11 Creating Stencils, Masters, Templates, and Styles (p. 203)
• Working with Stencils (p. 203)
• Saving a local stencil as a standalone stencil (p. 205)
• Creating a standalone stencil from scratch (p. 206)
• Creating a standalone stencil from a Visio stencil (p. 207)
• Working with Master Shapes (p. 209)
• Adding master shapes to stencils (p. 209)
• Deleting master shapes from stencils (p. 210)
• Moving master shapes from one stencil to another (p. 211)
• Viewing and arranging shapes on a stencil (p. 211)
• Working with Templates (p. 213)
• Working with Styles (p. 214)
• Creating and saving a style (p. 216)
• Applying a style to a shape (p. 217)
• Chapter 12 Storing, Using, and Protecting Information in Your Shapes (p. 219)
• Storing Data in Visio Shapes (p. 219)
• Entering custom properties data (p. 220)
• Editing custom properties fields (p. 221)
• Reporting on Data Stored in Visio Shapes (p. 222)
• Creating a report (p. 222)
• Updating reports (p. 224)
• Customizing Shape Behavior (p. 224)
• Using the SmartShape Wizard (p. 225)
• Setting shape behavior with a menu command (p. 226)
• Setting a shape's double-click behavior (p. 228)
• Protecting Your Work (p. 230)
• Keeping shapes secure from change (p. 230)
• Keeping drawings secure (p. 232)
• Chapter 13 Using Visio with Other Programs (p. 235)
• Creating Drawings from Data in Other Programs (p. 235)
• Creating organization charts (p. 236)
• Creating project timelines (p. 239)
• Using Visio in Non-Visio Documents (p. 240)
• Dragging or pasting shapes (p. 240)
• Linking shapes and drawings (p. 242)
• Embedding shapes and drawings (p. 243)
• Exporting shapes and drawings (p. 245)
• Sending drawings via e-mail (p. 246)
• Using Visio Drawings on the Internet (p. 248)
• Adding hyperlinks to a drawing (p. 248)
• Saving a drawing as an HTML page (p. 249)
• Part V The Part of Tens (p. 251)
• Chapter 14 Answers to Ten (Or So) Burning Questions aboutVisio (p. 253)
• Can I Work with Other File Types inside of Visio? (p. 253)
• How Do I Know Whether I'm Using the Right Template to Create My Drawing? (p. 254)
• Can I Customize My Visio Drawing Environment? (p. 254)
• How Many Times Can I Undo in Visio? (p. 254)
• How Do I Search for a Shape in Visio? I Don't Want to Open Every Stencil! (p. 254)
• How Do I Unlock a Shape? (p. 255)
• How Do I Copy Formatting from One Shape to Another? (p. 255)
• How Do I View Multiple Pages at the Same Time? (p. 255)
• How Do I Check a Drawing for Page Breaks? (p. 255)
• I Always Save My Files in the Same Folder. How Can I Let Visio Know? (p. 255)
• How Can I Draw Shapes Precisely? (p. 256)
• Can I Count Shapes on a Layer? (p. 256)
• How Do I Rotate Shapes to a Specific Angle? (p. 256)
• Chapter 15 Ten of Visio's Coolest Stencils and Wizards (p. 257)
• Check Out These Stencils (p. 257)
• Geographical maps (p. 258)
• Directional Maps stencil (p. 259)
• Marketing Diagrams stencil (p. 259)
• Form Design stencil (p. 260)
• Charting Shapes stencil (p. 262)
• Blocks with Perspective stencil (p. 264)
• Some Great Wizards to Try (p. 266)
• Web Diagram Wizard (p. 266)
• Chart Shape Wizard (p. 268)
• Build Region Wizard (p. 270)
• Stencil Report Wizard (p. 272)
• Chapter 16 Ten of the Best Visio Tips (p. 275)
• Use Your Pasteboard (p. 275)
• Preview Your Drawings in Windows Explorer (p. 275)
• Group Shapes (p. 276)
• Use Shape Help! (p. 276)
• Use Guides to Position and Move Shapes (p. 276)
• Work with Drawing Layers (p. 276)
• Fool Around with Snap and Glue Until You Figure Them Out! (p. 277)
• Set Undo Levels (p. 277)
• Quick;y Edit the Text in Your Document (p. 277)
• Use Keyboard Shortcuts (p. 278)
• Chapter 17 Ten Really Slick Drawings from the Makers of Visio (p. 279)
• Appendix: Stencil Gallery (p. 287)
• Stencils in Visio Standard, Visio Professional, and Visio Technical (p. 288)
• Stencils in Visio Professional (p. 297)
• Stencils in Visio Technical (p. 303)
• Index (p. 315)
• Book Registration Information

Author notes provided by Syndetics