Problems after upgrading from Visio 2002 to 2003

[Harmless]

Hi,

I use Word 2000, and until last week, Visio 2002. My company has now
enforced the updgrade to Visio 2003 and things just aren't the same!

My preferred method of getting Visio drawings into Word is to copy the
drawing in Visio (Ctrl-C) and paste it into Word (Ctrl-V). Easy.

With Visio 2002 that worked flawlessly. But with Visio 2003 I have the
following issues:

1. The drawing is scaled differently. I have the margins set in Word
and Visio so that Word shouldn't have to scale to fit. But with Visio
2003, it's doing something strange so that the pasted drawing is scaled
to 82%, whereas it was at 100% with Visio 2002.

I tested this scaling thing with a drawing I'd created in Visio 2002
and pasted it into the same Word template. Scaled to 82%. When I'd done
this before with Visio 2002, it was definitely 100%.

2. Dashed lines are converted to solid lines. This wasn't a problem
with Visio 2002.


Is there a setting I can change somewhere to make it behave like Visio
2002? Or will I have to change my method of working.

Not enjoying Visio 2003 yet.

David.

 

[EventHelix.com]

The best way to avoid such issues is to add visio diagrams
using the Insert->Object menu.

 

[Harmless]

Thanks,

I need to create all my diagrams in Visio, and then select a page at a
time and paste it at the appropriate location in the Word document.

The best way I've found to do it is to Paste Special and select
Enhanced Metafile. This method preserves the scale of the drawing
properly.

But with this method, even though they aren't converted to solid lines,
the dashed lines end up much thicker than they should be. For example,
in Visio I have a 0.5pt dashed line, but when pasted into Word it
becomes more like 2 or 3pt. It looks ridiculous.

Isn't it possible to paste a Visio 2003 drawing into Word without
having it distorted or degraded?

David.

 

[EventHelix.com]

A good option to do that would be to use "link to file".

1. Use Insert->Object menu
2. Click on the create from file tab in the dialog box.
3. Check the link to file checkbox.
4. Select the file.

Repeat this for all the files. The advantage of this approach is that
you will need to do this only once. Subsequent changes to
the diagrams will be automatically reflected in the Word document.

 

[Jeff Chapman]

If you export your Visio drawings as
raster images (GIF, JPEG, PNG, etc.) and then imported
the raster image into Word, basically what you see in
Word should be the same as what you see in Visio,
minus any posssible degradation in bitmap quality that
may result from exporting to raster format. Enhanced
Metafile won't do that for you, unfortunately.
Don't know if that will cause more trouble than it's worth
for you, but in the end, it may be the only surefire way
around this issue. Also, you may wish to try grouping
some portions of your image in Visio together, and then
see if the display and line thicknesses change at all in Word.
It seems silly, but you might even need to resort to rasterizing
the offending arrows and lines (in Visio, copy the selected object,
and do a Paste Special as a "Device Independent Bitmap") and
then do your Paste Special into Word. At any rate, this problem
occurs because Microsoft apparently hasn't quite gotten it right
regarding line thickness and arrow sizes, converting from
MS Office to metafile format.

- Jeff Chapman

 

[Harmless]

Thanks for the replies. I guess there are a few workarounds, I'll have
to just try them to see which one works best.

David.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Unfortunately, Visio 2003 and Word 2000 use different display surfaces which
make metafiles look a little different.

 

[Harmless]

Mark,

Thanks for the info. Will upgrading to Word 2003 fix the problem?

Thanks,
David.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

It will address the problem of different display technologies. I have good
success pasting Visio images into Word as Enhanced Metafiles. That seems to
offer the best fidelity.

 

[Harmless]

Thanks Mark,

David.