Visio: Geographic Stencils

M

Mark Aytor

Visio should have Geographic stencils. These should contain a U.S. map
stencil as a composite, with each of the 50 states as individual objects; an
EU map as a composite, with each of the 12-25 member states as individual
objects. A mercator map, with each of the world's 144 countries as individual
objects.

The problem: it is very difficult to draw the shapes of geographical
boundaries. Yet, business diagrams may more easily describe concepts such as
"Region" or "Jurisdiction" much more easily with geographic map stencils.
 
C

Chris Roth [ Visio MVP ]

Visio includes quite a few map shapes, which have the ability to position
themselves together...something I've never seen anywhere else. For instance,
you can drop Washington, Oregon and Florida on the page, right-click a shape
and select "Arrange to page", and the shapes will position and resize
themselves to their proper locations.

That being said, lawyers from various countries have really spoiled it for
Visio users, forcing MS not to include such shapes as China due to border
disputes, or not showing infinitesimal islands that aren't important for the
"clip-art" use that most users need.

Judging by your language, you are a "map-guy", which means your needs are
likely more specialized than the average user. Visio supports the
importation of many forms of clip-art. Map data is available from many
sources, so I would suggest downloading/purchasing one of these.

I remember that Corel Draw used to ship with 350,000 pieces of clip art. Is
that something Visio should do? I think it's beyond the core-competency of
Visio, which is to help business users create business diagrams. All of that
clip-art is still available to the Visio users that want to import it.


--

Hope this helps,

Chris Roth
Visio MVP
 

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