Straighten lines in Visio?

[Jim]

Is there a way to automatically straighten lines in Visio? I have snap and
glue turned off, yet when I try to create a perfectly straight line, it jumps
so that its axis is not level. Is there a function key or command that will
do this?

Thanks

 

[John... Visio MVP]

Is there a way to automatically straighten lines in Visio? I have snap
and
glue turned off, yet when I try to create a perfectly straight line, it
jumps
so that its axis is not level. Is there a function key or command that
will
do this?

Thanks

Do you mean straight ( no curves or deviations) or do you mean fixed at an
angle of 0 or 90 degrees?

If you want to do a level line (vertical, horizontal or 45), hold the shift
key while dragging.

John... Visio MVP

 

[WapperDude]

With snap turned off, it becomes really difficult to draw straight lines
unless you hold the shift key like John said.

The snap actually helps keeping the lines straight.

If are using the connector shape to go between two shapes, you can right
click and choose straight.

But, if you want perfectly vertical or horizontal lines, another technique
would be to bring up the Size & Position Window (View>Size & Position). The
Window will show you the coordinates of the start/end points. You can enter
values to make the line behave as you desire.

HTH
Wapperdude

 

[Leo Flaviu]

The question is how to keep the visio shapes on a virtual straight line.

Honestly, I cannot believe it is so difficult and counter-intuitive to achieve that. We should be able to simply select the shapes that we want to line up (to have their corners on a straight horizontal or vertical line) and click a button and have them slightly shifted so that the connectors straighten up.

I know at some point i had that option enabled (or some similar option, where a virtual line was shown through all my shapes that I wanted to kepp perfectly horizontal or vertical), but now I cannot find it for the life of me.

Can anyone help? Thank you.

 

[Leo Flaviu]

Well, duh, maybe I didn't look hard enough. Here it is, if anyone else is looking for this: Aligning Shapes:
? Select the shapes you want to align
? go to the Shape menu > Align Shapes > select your alignment option. Voila.

You can also do it another way, although the one above is simpler: use vertical or horizontal lines (called guidlines):
? You drag them from a ruler, and by default they appear blue.
? Then you can position the shapes running down each guide line (and guides don't show up on printed diagrams)