empty space at drawing top

[cayce]

I have a Visio 2007 drawing that is adding empty white space at the top. I
cannot see what it is that is creating this empty space. When I ctrl + A to
select all, I can only see that there is a rotate handle that projects into
the empty space from all the selected objects. As far as I know, that is
typical behavior.

I tried resized the drawing in page setup to “fit the drawing contentsâ€.
Page setup must "see" something up there because it leaves that space, but I
cannot figure out what.

Any suggestions on how I could go about finding what is hiding in this empty
space would be appreciated.

 

[cayce]

Never mind, I just solved my own issue.

Selecting all, then choosing ungroup brought up a message about shapes not
responding to changes to the masters of the shapes. I said ok anyhow and
discovered one of the shapes had a "chunk" of empty space attached to it. I
deleted this chunk ( a series of empty text boxes). Now, when I resize the
page to fit the drawing contents, my empty space is gone.

 

[James W.]

You could use the drawing explorer and check for shapes on the foreground page.

James W.

 

[cayce]

How do you do this?

I noticed one other empty shape inside the drawing that I cannot figure out
how to select for deletion. Maybe this would be a way to clean this up.

 

[James W.]

Once Visio has opened, select View > Drawing Explorer Window. You can then
select the foreground page and expand it. Selecting a shape in Drawing
Explorer Window will also select it on the drawing page. You can delete the
shape if it is not protected.

James W.

 

[cayce]

thanks James. I do not use Visio often and have never noticed this before. I
was able to find the other empty shape this way and get rid of it.

thanks for the useful tip.

Namaste

 

[WapperDude]

Before going to the Drawing Explorer, a few questions--
1.) Are some of these shapes custom? The shapes supplied with Visio don't
normally behave in this manner. This could help identify the offending shape
by "narrowing the field of choice".
2.) Are there a lot of shapes? This will make the process using the
Drawing Explorer somewhat tedious if there are.
3.) Are there any invisibile layers? Invisible layers are not selectable.
To check, go to menu bar > View > Layer properties. If there are any
non-visible layers, make them visible. Hopefully, this will quickly identify
the bad shapes.

If not, then, to get the Drawing Explorer, go to menu bar > View > Drawing
Explorer. Click foreground pages to get a list of pages in the document.
Click the page of concern, click shapes. You may need to keep clicking to
navigate thru the tree structure. If you click a shape in the Drawing
Explorer, it will be selected in the drawing window. Right click a shape in
the DE will bring up a menu with various options, including delete.
Hopefully, this will give you sufficient tools to eliminate the problem.

BTW, you normally don't want to break the link between the placed shape and
it's master. In some cases, it reduces the "smartness" of the shape, and,
should the master be modified, the placed shape won't get updated.

HTH
Wapperdude

 

[cayce]

Before going to the Drawing Explorer, a few questions--
1.) Are some of these shapes custom? The shapes supplied with Visio don't
normally behave in this manner. This could help identify the offending shape
by "narrowing the field of choice".

The shape I was dealing with was named RAID array.23 in DE. As I expanded
the shapes subfolder in DE for it, I found Sheets 293, 297, and 301 were the
empty boxes with no fill or line that I needed to delete. I used the search
shape features to ferret out the RAID shape, so cannot tell you which stencil
it came from. Is there a way to tell its "home" stencil?

2.) Are there a lot of shapes? This will make the process using the
Drawing Explorer somewhat tedious if there are.

After ungrouping, there were LOTS of shapes. It was rather tedious, but I
kept muddling through until I found the other empty box I needed to get rid
of.

3.) Are there any invisibile layers? Invisible layers are not selectable.
To check, go to menu bar > View > Layer properties. If there are any
non-visible layers, make them visible. Hopefully, this will quickly identify
the bad shapes.

Thanks for this tip. I had no invisible layers.

If not, then, to get the Drawing Explorer, go to menu bar > View > Drawing
Explorer. Click foreground pages to get a list of pages in the document.
Click the page of concern, click shapes. You may need to keep clicking to
navigate thru the tree structure. If you click a shape in the Drawing
Explorer, it will be selected in the drawing window.

It would really be useful in reverse: clicking on the shape in the drawing
would select that shape in DE.

Right click a shape in
the DE will bring up a menu with various options, including delete.
Hopefully, this will give you sufficient tools to eliminate the problem.

BTW, you normally don't want to break the link between the placed shape and
it's master. In some cases, it reduces the "smartness" of the shape, and,
should the master be modified, the placed shape won't get updated.

I grasp why this would be. In my case, it was inconsequential.

I noticed too, that after I ungrouped all, the shapes were now broken into
many small pieces. I guess they behave the way clipart does in Word. That is
that you can edit even little pieces of the shape. I can see the pros/cons to
this ability.

HTH

Yes, it helps.

Peace

 

[John... Visio MVP]

The shape I was dealing with was named RAID array.23 in DE. As I expanded
the shapes subfolder in DE for it, I found Sheets 293, 297, and 301 were
the
empty boxes with no fill or line that I needed to delete. I used the
search
shape features to ferret out the RAID shape, so cannot tell you which
stencil
it came from. Is there a way to tell its "home" stencil?


After ungrouping, there were LOTS of shapes. It was rather tedious, but I
kept muddling through until I found the other empty box I needed to get
rid
of.


Thanks for this tip. I had no invisible layers.

It would really be useful in reverse: clicking on the shape in the drawing
would select that shape in DE.



I grasp why this would be. In my case, it was inconsequential.

I noticed too, that after I ungrouped all, the shapes were now broken into
many small pieces. I guess they behave the way clipart does in Word. That
is
that you can edit even little pieces of the shape. I can see the pros/cons
to
this ability.

Yes, it helps.

Peace

The shapes may have appeared empty, but they may have contained fields that
refered to something that at that point in time had no value.

John... Visio MVP

 

[cayce]

Thanks John. There's a lot more power in Visio than I have used or even knew
about.

Is there a way to learn the stencil a shape is assigned to when you locate
it from the search shape feature?

Also, any way to select a shape in the drawing that will give you clue as to
its location in Drawing Explorer?

thanks again for the information provided to date.

 

[John... Visio MVP]

In the Options dialog under the Tools menu, select the Shape Search tab.
Next to Results, choose "By Group". This will give the name of the stencil.

With the Drawing Expoler, you can go to the Shapes collection for the page
and select the name of the first shape. By using the up and down arrow, you
can examine the drawing. Each time you select a new shape, the shape is
highlighted on the page. This is also a method of selecting sub shapes.

To go in the other direction, select the shape and select Special... from
the Format menu. The Name on that dialog is the name that is used in the
Drawing Explorer.

John... Visio MVP

 

[cayce]

John:

Hmmmm....I get stuck on the last tip you suggest about going to the Format
menu and choosing special. Special does not appear for me under this menu, or
under any of the other drop down menus.

Another way perhaps?

thanks!

 

[James W.]

You need to make sure you are running Visio in developer mode otherwise you
will not see the format special menu item. You can set it under: tools >
options > advanced > place a check in the Run in developer mode box.

James W.

 

[cayce]

Yahoo! That was all I needed to do. Now I can see how the shape correlates to
Drawing Explorer. This is very cool.

thanks again!

Namaste.

 

[John... Visio MVP]

James, Thanks for stepping in.

John.. Visio MVP

You need to make sure you are running Visio in developer mode otherwise
you
will not see the format special menu item. You can set it under: tools >
options > advanced > place a check in the Run in developer mode box.

James W.