Embedding Text File ?

[D4rk F1br]

Is it possible to make a stencil / shape clickable so that it brings
up a text file or text field?

For instance, say I have a router in the diagram and want to associate
the routers config to the router. What I envision is that a user
could click on the router and the routers config would open up in a
text file or something.

I didn't want it to link to a text file because then I have to send
more then one file to people, I was hoping to make the visio document
the single source of all the info.

I have discovered that I can drag and drop a text file into the
diagram and it seems to be contained in the document itself and not
just a shortcut or link to a document.

I would not mind this as a solution, however one problem I have with
it is that the icon it creates is very tiny, and if I drag the box to
make the icon bigger the box itself becomes huge and takes up a lot of
area. I haven't figured out a way around this. It wouldn't be a bad
solution to have a little text file icon next to each device so that
when clicked it would open up the config, however I can't seem to be
able to figure out the icon sizing for this.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Doug.S]

How about if you try this....I have not done it in Visio but often in
PowerPoint and it should work in similar way.

Add a new page, insert your text block onto new page or just make a form
there.

Back on page one, make the stencil item on the page with a hyperlink to jump
(upon a mouse click) to page 2 to the form.

Perhaps a page for each form or multiple forms per page.

And you may want a hyperlink on forms page to go back to page one or a note
to click on page one tab at bottom.

 

[John Goldsmith]

First stop should be using Shape Data (Custom Properties prior to 2007).
Take a look at this link on the subject:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa200980(office.10).aspx

The only downside is that the visible text is somewhat restricted for long
chunks of text, but at least your users could copy and paste the text and it
would be retained within the file.

Let me know if you think that would work for you.

Best regards

John


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

 

[Al Edlund]

I guess my primary concern would be the security and concurrency aspects
(keeping it up to date and ensuring that those that don't need to know can't
look at it). In the shops I work in we try to set it up so they can telnet
into the boxes and then allow tacacs to ensure they have the correct span
and scope to check out what they need.
al

 

[David Parker]

If you SaveAsWeb, then the multi-line text in ShapeData will be displayed
fully...
Shape Data/Custo Proeprty values can be 64k characters long ... I think.