Auto space shapes

[Mel_P]

Hello - I am trying to use Visio to plan my garden paths with slabs of 300 x
300, 300 x 450 etc. When I place these, or afterwards, I want to ensure
that these have a spacing of 100mm on all edges.

Is there a command in Visio to achieve this please? I can't seem to achieve
it.

Thanks, Mel

 

[Philippe C.]

The normal way to do this would be to add connection points at a distance
from the corners. I experimented with their gender, number and snap and glue
settings, but it does not work well.

So I thought of making the alignment box greater than the shape. But I
forgot how to do that and "Using Visio Technical.pdf" is not readable in my
Acrobat Reader.

But a bit of trickery, which programmers don't like does work =
Add an inivisible line at offset 50 mm to the shape.

 

[John Goldsmith]

Hello Mel,

To add to Phillipe's suggestion, if you have Visio 2007 Professional then
there's a layout add-on under Tools / Add-ons / Visio Extras / Array
Shapes...

If you don't have the Pro version then you could do this with code. If
that's of interest, you might want to have a look at this post:

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/mi...nk=st&q=visio+copy+using+vba#2e5392bf1a86ffc3

....and this blog post if you've not done any coding before:

http://visualsignals.typepad.co.uk/vislog/2007/10/just-for-starte.html

Hope that helps.

Best regards

John


John Goldsmith
www.visualSignals.typepad.co.uk
www.visualSignals.co.uk

 

[Philippe C.]

John, those arrrays won't be of much help as Mel plans a luxury garden with
different sizes of slabs.

Have you tried the connections points ? I allways have trouble with them.

And do you remember how to make the alignment box greater than the size
geometry ?

 

[John Goldsmith]

Hello Philippe (sorry for previous spelling),

Well in depends on how Mel wants to arrange the slabs. You can arrange
multiple shapes and then create a selection duplicate this with array shapes
(ie doesn't have to be a single shape).

Re the alignment box - you can set the LockCalcWH ShapeSheet cell to true
and then further changes to the geometry have no effect on the alignment
box.

Best regards

John


John Goldsmith
www.visualSignals.typepad.co.uk
www.visualSignals.co.uk

 

[Philippe C.]

Mel,
The method with the locking of the alignment box works great. You have to
offset, delete, group, adapt shapesheet cell, select subshape, delete, snap
to alignment box and dynamic grid.
There does exist an explanation on the connecction point using curved tiles,
somewhere in the MS Visio documentation. But I don't find it back any more.

 

[Mel_P]

Hello All - I have Visio 2002 and I did it the clunky way - I made the grid
10mm x 10mm (my spacing) and placed the slabs (300x300; 300x450, 450x450;
600x300 and 600x450 manually - well for a one off it was easier. I have done
some VBA in Access and Excel but not in Visio -
(chickened out) Mel

Thanks anyway!!