Creating a custom stencil for Cross Functional band and Separator

[SSquire]

Hello,
I'm well versed in creating custom stencils. We utilize this process to
create stencil groups that conform to our corporate branding colors to help
keep consistency across our organization.

My difficulty is in adding a Functional Band shape to the stencil. I can add
it to my stencil, modify the colors, line weighting, fonts, etc. However,
when I actually use it, it defaults to the standard microsoft colors. The
same is true if I edit the formatting of an existing drawing and try to add
additional bands to it.

Do you have any suggestions for me?

 

[Paul Herber]

Hello,
I'm well versed in creating custom stencils. We utilize this process to
create stencil groups that conform to our corporate branding colors to help
keep consistency across our organization.

My difficulty is in adding a Functional Band shape to the stencil. I can add
it to my stencil, modify the colors, line weighting, fonts, etc. However,
when I actually use it, it defaults to the standard microsoft colors. The
same is true if I edit the formatting of an existing drawing and try to add
additional bands to it.

Do you have any suggestions for me?

Open the shape's shapesheet and put a Guard() around any values or
formula you want to protect.
e.g. if you want to protect the fill color then in the section Fill
Format in cell FillForegrnd if the current setting is say "5" then set
it to GUARD(5).

 

[SSquire]

Paul thank you so much for fielding my question

That definately solved one of my problems - if I add new swimlanes they now
conform to our styles. However, I'm still have trouble when first dropping
it to the page (when the flow chart dialog box comes up). The initial chart
is in the default styles.

Any other thoughts or guidance?

 

[Paul Herber]

Paul thank you so much for fielding my question

That definately solved one of my problems - if I add new swimlanes they now
conform to our styles. However, I'm still have trouble when first dropping
it to the page (when the flow chart dialog box comes up). The initial chart
is in the default styles.

Any other thoughts or guidance?

For that I think you'll have to edit the master shape but Visio won't
allow you to do that, so make save copy of the stencil in case you
mess things up, then copy the stencil again to where you can work on
it, open the copy of the stencil for editing, make your changes, save
it, then copy it back to the original Visio folder.