What are shapes?

I’m sure that you already know what shapes are, but because these are the fundamental items in our illustration, let me be even more specific.
In “Visio”, a shape is everything, ranging from an image to text, irrespective of the type of data.
There are two types of shapes in “Visio”: 1D and 2D.
Examples of a 1D shape, are lines and arcs.
Examples of a 2D shape, are squares, circles, text, etc.
In “Visio”, 3D shapes such as a laptop or a bar, are also treated in the same way as 2D shapes.

When you work with shapes, you can resize, rotate, move and format them.

To resize a shape, click and drag a selection handle.
To rotate a 2D shape, and move the mouse pointer over the top of the pivot point, and then click and drag it either to the left or right.
To replace the pivot point of a 2D shape hold the mouse pointer over the circle, and when the turning point appears in the shape, drag it to the desired position.
If you wish to change the size or direction of a 1D shape, click and drag with the help of the starting or ending point.

The behavior of the shape during all of these operations depends on the type of the shape.
Each type of shape behaves in a certain way.
Once you know how to work with a particular type of shape, you can do whatever you want with it.

If you cannot find the right shape in one of the stencils, you can draw it yourself.

To draw shapes we use the “Drawing toolbar”.
To open the “Drawing toolbar” , click on the “Draw Tool” button in the standard toolbar, or click on “View” in the “Menu bar”, select “Toolbars” from the drop-down menu and click on “Drawing”.

Searching for shapes:

I can imagine that you don’t want to go through each and every stencil, when you are looking for a specific type of shape.
For this we have the search box.
Enter a keyword in the textbox, and then click on the green arrow pointing to the right.

Using ‘My Shapes’

In the previous lesson, I have already explained how to add shapes to a stencil you created.
There is another way of doing this.
Right-click on the shape that you want to add to the stencil you created.
Select the “Add to my shapes” option.
In the drop-down menu that appears, all the stencils you created are displayed.
All you have to do is to click on the stencil to which you want this shape to be added.

Another option is the “Favorites” list.
This is a list of the stencils that you already created, in “Visio”.
Compare this list with your browser’s favorites list. Here, you can view all your favorite shapes.

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