How can I insert Visio drawings into a grid?

[Kam]

I currently have approx. 150 small visio diagrams that I will print on a
1-page wall chart using a plotter. The chart needs to be set up in a grid
format (similar to Excel) with one visio digram in each cell of the grid.
The chart will have a legend that shows the name of each visio diagram with
its grid coordinates . (For example, Diagram A is at location A1, Diagram B
is at A2, etc.) To make things interesting, the number of visio diagrams
will grow and as a result, the diagrams on the chart may need to be
rearranged on the grid. I would like to figure out a way to set this up so
that placing a visio diagram in a different grid cell would automatically
update the legend with the new, correct cell coordinates for that diagram.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this? I have tried pasting the visio
diagrams into Excel and into the visio Charting Shapes grids, but of course
you can't actually insert the diagrams into a cell using these. If you think
VBA code is the way I will have to go, I would appreciate specific
suggestions as to what I need to code since I am a novice with VBA. I am
using Visio 2007 on Windows XP but the rest of my MS Office apps are
currently 2003. My company will be upgrading to Office 2007 soon, so my
solution will have to be able to accommodate that change. Thank you in
advance for any ideas or suggestions you may have.

 

[Paul Herber]

I currently have approx. 150 small visio diagrams that I will print on a
1-page wall chart using a plotter. The chart needs to be set up in a grid
format (similar to Excel) with one visio digram in each cell of the grid.
The chart will have a legend that shows the name of each visio diagram with
its grid coordinates . (For example, Diagram A is at location A1, Diagram B
is at A2, etc.) To make things interesting, the number of visio diagrams
will grow and as a result, the diagrams on the chart may need to be
rearranged on the grid. I would like to figure out a way to set this up so
that placing a visio diagram in a different grid cell would automatically
update the legend with the new, correct cell coordinates for that diagram.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to do this? I have tried pasting the visio
diagrams into Excel and into the visio Charting Shapes grids, but of course
you can't actually insert the diagrams into a cell using these. If you think
VBA code is the way I will have to go, I would appreciate specific
suggestions as to what I need to code since I am a novice with VBA. I am
using Visio 2007 on Windows XP but the rest of my MS Office apps are
currently 2003. My company will be upgrading to Office 2007 soon, so my
solution will have to be able to accommodate that change. Thank you in
advance for any ideas or suggestions you may have.

Save all the diagrams as images, gif or png might be the best format.
Mow have a look at some of the software used for creating web based
photo albums, I used one recently, http://www.ornj.net/webalbum/
You can set the number of image columns, image size, captions and you
can just edit the album file manually with a simple text editor.

 

[AlEdlund]

a key question, to be answered, is : what version of v2007? (standard or
professional)
al

 

[Kam]

Thank you very much, Paul. I'll give that a try right now.

 

[Kam]

I'm using V2007 Professional.

I quickly tried Paul's web album suggestion and I don't think it's going to
meet my needs. I would have to print the thumbnail index as my chart and it
doesn't give me enough flexibility to place the visio diagrams where I want
them in the index. Also, it only accepts .jpg format and the readability of
the text on my diagrams really degraded when I saved them as jpgs. I also
looked into using Visio's "zones" shapes, but it appears that they function
as just a background, which is not what I'm looking for. I would really
appreciate any other suggestions you might have.

 

[Paul Herber]

I'm using V2007 Professional.

I quickly tried Paul's web album suggestion and I don't think it's going to
meet my needs. I would have to print the thumbnail index as my chart and it
doesn't give me enough flexibility to place the visio diagrams where I want
them in the index. Also, it only accepts .jpg format and the readability of
the text on my diagrams really degraded when I saved them as jpgs.

That one was only an example, there are many more, and that take PNGs
http://www.web-album-maker.com/screenshot.html

I searched for "png photo album generator"

 

[Kam]

Thanks again, Paul. I'll try this one. I searched for other ones myself,
but didn't find any that weren't blocked by my company's security software.
Obviously I didn't find this one. I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[vojo]

you might try naming each page A1,A2,A3 and fold the page name into the
footer for that page.

user.cell = pagename()

insert field(user.cell) into the footer. Could also add date and maybe
revision incase the this 'grid' entry updates

 

[Kam]

Thank you for the great idea. I'll give it a try.