Visio XML and Shape Positioning

[wdhough]

Hi,
I would like to know a shapes position from looking at the xml (VDX) file
that visio can save to. I see in lots of places that it is "PinX" and "PinY"
in the shape element. But this simply cant be right. If I have say a
simple flowchart in us units (inches) then it seems to work fine. The page
element will say the width is 8.5 and the height 11, which looks right.
However if your in metric. The unit turns to "MM", which could stand for
Millimeters or Metric i guess. But the same sized page will claim to be 3.93
by 3.93 in whatever metric unit that is. I realise that the MM may mean
something, but i cant find anything about what this might mean!

Thanks

 

[Al Edlund]

I understand that the internal units in Visio are inches, but, performing a
little math on the returned value or when applying the value can allow you
to place it where you desire.
al

 

[wdhough]

Thats not what i want. I dont know what you mean about a returned value.
This is the raw XML file I'm talking about. Basically where can i find the
information about page width and height and shape positioning for any
diagram/shape be it metric or imperial. If there is some maths involved to
do this then what is it?

Thanks

Will

 

[Al Edlund]

have you checked msdn downloads for office xml schema data, I thought the
visio schema data was published there.
al

 

[wdhough]

Yes, and it doesnt help! Let me give you a real example

Under VisioDocument/Pages/PageSheet/PageProps it says
<PageWidth Unit="MM">8.26771653543307</PageWidth>
<PageHeight Unit="MM">11.69291338582677</PageHeight>

MM its claimed stands for millimeters. I assure you the page is not 8.26
wide and 11.69 high. So what is it referring to?

 

[Al Edlund]

please forgive my ignorance on this, but since the discussion is centering
on metric vs imperial can I assume that you are not in the US? With that
assumption it is my understanding that at least in Great Britain they use
different 'standard' paper sizes (as an example A4) which although not
identical in size to what we use in some cases are close. Is it possible
that your printer setup has a page size of A4 and Visio has converted it to
inches (my mind doesn't work to well converting MM to inches this early in
the morning)?
Al

 

[Al Edlund]

yup,
if you take the A4 paper (210mm x 297mm) and divide by 25.4 you get a page
size of 8.2677in x 11.6929in.
al

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

MM is millimeters and is the units to be displayed in. All internal number
in Visio are in inches, so 8.267" by 11.6929" is the size of a piece of A4
page.

John... Visio MVP

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[wdhough]

Ok i didnt realise that, i have recentlty found the pagescale node, which
would seem to do the same.

thanks for the help