5 MS Visio Tips and Tricks You Should Know About

If you’ve ever used MS Visio, you know that it’s an amazing app for creating diagrams and it’s undoubtedly among the top diagramming apps.

It’s versatile and offers many tools and functions for creating top-notch diagrams and flowcharts for many different purposes.

That said, there are some tools and tricks you probably didn’t know about, even if you’ve been using Visio for a long time. I’ve worked on that tool for some years now and understand it better than most people, which allows me to know its tricky sides and be able to give tips to all kinds of users!

Here are 5 nifty tips and tricks to help you use MS Visio and make your work more pleasant, fast, and enjoyable.

 #1: Draw Your Own Shapes

That’s right - you can draw anything you like and add it to your flowchart or diagram! Using the 2013 version of Visio, you can find the drawing tools next to the Pointer Tool on the Ribbon. When you click on the little arrow, a drop-down menu will show up, and you can pick the shape you want to draw.

You can choose from: rectangles, ellipses, lines, freeform, acs, and pencils. Just click on one of them and start drawing different shapes. You can also combine shapes to make more complex ones.

With the pencil tool, you have complete freedom when it comes to your drawing so you can create intricate, one-of-a-kind shapes to suit your needs.

#2: Save your Stencils

Let’s say you’ve created a shape, a label, or a drawing that you want to use later, but it’s not a part of the default stencils that Visio offers.

You don’t need to try to recreate it every time you need it because Visio allows you to save it and use it every time you need it.

All you need to do is go to the left toolbar, then to “More shapes,” and click on “New Stencil”. After that, just drag and drop the shape you’ve created into the empty space in the toolbar, right-click on the stencil and click on “Save as...” to rename and save it. And there you go! You have just added your custom stencil to the Visio library for later use.

#3: Edit Text Easily

Editing text in apps not specifically for text editing can be quite frustrating sometimes, especially when you have tried everything but can’t find the text editing tools.

There is a simple way of doing that in MS Visio, requiring just a few clicks. If you have added text to a shape and want to edit it, simply click on the shape and press the F2 button on the keyboard. Simple as that!

This command will show the editing tools, so you won’t have to go through numerous tabs and menus to find them. And when you’re ready to customize the text, you must press “Esc” to exit the text editing mode.

#4: Add Different Types of Files

MS Visio allows you to copy anything from other MS Office apps and paste it as it is. It is a great function if you want to incorporate a part of an Excel table or diagram into your Visio flowchart.

You don’t have to go through the process of manually drawing a table and filling it in again in Visio. Copy it from your Excel file and paste it into your Visio file.

You can also insert images into your diagram or flowchart and edit them with various editing tools. You can crop the images, resize them, rotate them, fix the brightness and contrast, and incorporate them into the shape of your diagram, so if you need to move the shape, it moves along with the image it contains.

#5: Shortcuts For Faster Work

When it comes to using any type of software, one thing you need to know is that there is always an easier and faster way to do things.

That’s the case with MS Visio as well: I have found many shortcuts to help you get to the commands and tools you need without having to go through numerous tabs and menus. Here is a list of some helpful keyboard shortcuts for your convenience: