Copying "Insert field" labels to multiple shapes

[Harry]

Hi all,
I have a flowchart in which all text is stored in Custom Property fields and then displayed (on each shape) using Visio's "Insert > Field... > Custom Properties > Field Name" option.

I want each shape in my flowchart to display data stored in the same two fields (Owner and Task). Presently I'm clicking through the "Insert > Field > Custom Properties > Field Name" process twice for each shape (once for "owner", once for "task") which is become rather tedious. Is there a way to copy the Field "placeholders" to multiple shapes? Cutting and pasting from one shape to another simply copies the text, not the data placeholders.

Thanks,
Harry

 

[J Kallay, Visimation Inc]

Visio masters were designed to allow you to make a change in one place that
applies to all instances of the master. Open up the Document Stencil
(File>Shapes>Show Document Stencil), right click the master for one of your
flowchart shapes, select Edit Master>Edit Master Shape, and from there follow
the steps you would to add the custom properties. You can follow these steps
for all of the flowchart masters on your document stencil. Alternatively,
you could do this once to one master and then replace all of the other
masters with derivatives of the first. This is more complicated, but let us
know if you want to go down that path and we will help you out.

 

[J Kallay]

I think your two options are 1)replace all of the Document instances with
instances of the one Document master 2)edit each separate Document master.
Option one is cleaner but more time consuming (perhaps not much better than
adding the custom properties you want to each shape). Option two is not so
bad, because you can edit each master, delete the shape, and paste in a copy
of the one with the custom properties. Even if you have 10 Document masters
this should take two minutes.

Hi and thanks for the info. Actually, updating the master, is something
I've already done - admittedly however - I did so a bit late... The
scenario you describe at the end of your post is exactly where I'm at now; I
think.

I have 10-15 tabs in my Visio document and each tab is comprised of no more
than 10 different standard Visio shapes (simple process flows). My problem
is that while learning how to "properly" use Visio I populated those tabs
with shapes from about 10 different masters - change this, delete that, go
get another one... In other words, I now have, say, 50 "Document"
shapes generated from 5 different Document masters. Is there a way to
assign the characteristics of my new master to each existing shape?

Thanks,
Harry

 

[Harry]

Thanks again for the help - I was hoping there would be an easy way to do
this... Oh well, what's that old saying about learning from one's mistakes?

Regards,
Harry

 

[J Kallay]

In retrospect, my suggestion for how to do option 2 quickly was pretty lame.
Define a custom property set and apply it to all the appropriate masters in
the document stencil. I suspect you've already figured this one out.