Associate text with certain positions on org chart

[XP]

Using Visio 2002 SP2.

Is there a way to attach or associate text to a shape; perhaps something
like a cell note in MS-Excel? Or is there a built-in note pad one could open
where some textual notes could be added about a shape?

The reason is, we are looking at developing an org chart, but for some
positions we would like to add some notes about the positions; e.g. for
justifications, approvals, under filled positions, promotions, demotions,
lateral moves, etc.

These notes could be rather long, and I'm presuming, not appropriate for a
custom property of the shape? How long can a custom property be? We could
need up to say about the equivalent of one page in a MS-Word document at
Arial 10-point font with half-inch margins.

If this is built-in, how do I access it? If not built-in, any suggestions on
creating something using VBA? Should I consider hyperlinking to separate
MS-Word documents? Ideas?

Thanks much in advance.

 

[Chris Roth [MVP]]

Hi XP,

There is a comment field for a shape - you access it via Insert > Shape
ScreenTip, and the text you enter gets stored in the Miscellaneous.Comment
ShapeSheet cell. I'm not sure that this would be ideal for the amount of
text you are talking about, but perhaps you could give it a try.

The screen tip shows up when you pause the mouse over the shape. I tried
pasting your entire news post into the comment. It worked just fine, but
when the screen tip pops up, the text gets truncated, with a "..." appearing
at the end.

On the other hand, I beleive that Custom Properties can theoretically take
as much information as your system can store, or maybe 64kb of data. I can't
quite remember which one it is. This is lots of information at any rate. The
problems you're likely to run into are:

1. Suitably displaying all this info somewhere. (It won't look good in the
Custom Properties dialog box)
2. Escaping all quote marks that might be in your text, so that the custom
property can be stored properly in the ShapeSheet. The dialog box does this
for you automatically, but I imagine you are using some sort of automation
if you are stuffing so much text into a shape.

Another idea to consider might be simply adding hyperlinks to an intranet
site for each process...?

--
Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

Free Visio shapes:
http://www.visguy.com/category/shapes
Visio programming info:
http://www.visguy.com/category/programming/
Other Visio resources:
http://www.visguy.com/visio-links/

 

[XP]

Thanks a lot Chris for your informative reply. At least you have given me
some things to consider and try; Maybe MS will read this and develop a new
feature around this concept...

Thanks again.

 

[Chris Roth [MVP]]

XP,

Check out Visimations add-on tools at this address:

http://www.shapesource.com/scripts/prodList.asp?idCategory=40

There's a utility called "VisiNotes 2003" that might help you! More specific
info is located here:

http://www.shapesource.com/scripts/prodDetails.asp?idProduct=117

--
Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP

Free Visio shapes:
http://www.visguy.com/category/shapes
Visio programming info:
http://www.visguy.com/category/programming/
Other Visio resources:
http://www.visguy.com/visio-links/