how to display the virtual dimensions of a page via the ruler.

[Pierre]

greetings.

Pls bear with me as I'm a newbie to Visio and am currently evaluating the
product. I'm a landscape designer and am planning on using Visio for the bulk
of my work, so adding legends and cartridges and such to the plans will be a
must. However, I ran into a tight spot trying to scale and size my various
non-measurement objects(e.g. legends, cartridges, name-address fields and
such like) to reflect their actual size and dimension as they are suppose to
appear in the printed version. I've scoured the docs and help files, but
still cannot figure out how to trasform the ruler in such way as to display
the 'virtual' dimensions of the page (e.g. let's say A1: 841 X 594 mm). In
other words, I'd like to see displayed on the x-y ruler increments that would
be in the 841 X 594 mm range so that I can then scale and re-size my various
non-measurement objects as described above.
Anyone have any suggestions to offer. I hope I made myself clear.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Pierre]

Well... no takers I guess. Thanks anyway! So for whoever cares to know I've
discovered an unorthodox method of getting around my issue, albeit based on
my ignorance of the how the product should and might really work...

As a former tech. support guy for a leading high-end 3D SW (based in
Montréal), I sort of ended up creating my own workaround (as I usually did
for many a client) as follows:

1. I dragged & dropped a simple rectangle shape into a new 'Favorites'
stencil shape container.
2. I then opened this new master object for editing in a new window
3. Next, in order to obtain the scale and dimensions I was striving for, I
had to open the 'File-Page Setup' window, went to the 'Page properties' tab
and changed the 'Page measurement units' to 'Centimeters' (could be anything
you want: mm, inches, whatever); then went to the 'Drawing Scale' tab and
checked the 'No scale (1/1)' option on; then proceded to the 'Page Size' tab
and checked the 'Same as printer paper size' option' on (note: I previously
set my printer setup paper size to 'letter' (11.5 X 8) . As a result of step
3, the guide rulers (X and Y) now displayed units in centimeters.
4. I then started creating my custom shapes based on the so-called
'real-world' dimensions I wanted them to be displayed at when I will print
the plans out (e.g. my 'legend' shape will measure 10 X 18 cm on my A1 paper,
consistent with the ruler and shape measurements I used when I created the
master shape of the legend in Visio.

The sad thing is, I just could not figure out a simpler way of just
converting the rulers on the fly to any measurement unit or scale while
retaining the preset drawing scale to let say A1, as it was in my situation.
Perhaps this would make an interesting feature addition to the SW: the
ability to 'freeze' the drawing to its original drawing scale while being
able to juxtapose or switch the display ruler to any other scale and/or unit.
I'm currently evaluating the product, and as insignificant as this may
sound, I find that this little issue I'm experiencing has sort of lead me to
a cul-de-sac, and might influence my decision to go with the product.

In any event cheers.
P.