How to Create Visio Symbols

You can create customized shapes and symbols and keep them connected using Microsoft Visio.

Microsoft Visio is a drawing and diagramming software package for Windows that includes a variety of pre-drawn shapes and picture elements that can be dragged and dropped onto an illustration, according to the Free Dictionary. All Business, a D&B company, adds that Visio recognizes the ways in which symbols interact with their environment and each symbol, or "SmartShape," created using Visio can be programmed to behave in a specific way as it is moved or re-sized. You can create your own custom shapes and symbols and keep a complex diagram properly connected as parts of it are rearranged using the built-in Visio functionality.

Things You'll Need

• Microsoft Visio application

Instructions

1. Open the Microsoft Visio program that is already installed on your PC. Click the Windows icon or "Start" button, go to "All Programs" or "Programs," depending on the Windows operating system you are using, and double-click "Microsoft Visio" or simply double-click on the Microsoft Visio shortcut icon on your desktop.

2. Create a new Visio stencil to hold the symbol you create. Go to "File" from the main menu tool bar, click "Shapes" and then click "New Stencil." Select the panel you will see in the shapes area with a title such as "Stencil 1." Switch to editable mode if the stencil is in "Read-only" mode by right-clicking the stencil title bar and selecting "Edit Stencil." Click "Save as" to change the stencil name. Visio will prompt you to save your stencil in "My Documents" or "My Shapes" by default. Make sure the stencil icon found in the stencil bar has a red mark on it that indicates the stencil is in "editable" mode.

3. Create a new Visio shape or Master. Right-click the stencil window and choose "New Master." Specify the characteristics of the symbol you want to create in the pop-up dialogue box that opens. Click "OK" when you are finished. You may only include the name of the symbol and leave the other properties alone as a start. A blank Visio shape icon will appear in the stencil.

4. Right-click "New shape," point to "Edit Master" and then click "Edit Master Shape" to create a custom shape or symbol just as you would create a shape in a regular drawing page by drawing the shape with the drawing tools, using shapes from different stencils or pasting an object from another application in the interface that opens.

5. Close the custom drawing window. Click the Windows document "X" button and select "Yes" when you are prompted to update the custom shape.

6. Right-click the stencil title bar and select "Save" to save your changes.

Tips & Warnings

• Microsoft supplies Visio master shapes that are copyrighted. You may not sell or distribute original or modified Visio master shapes, but you may modify, copy and reorganize them for your own use and distribute drawings that contain them.

References

• The Free Dictionary: Visio
• All Business: Business Definition for Visio
• App Dev: How to Make a Visio Stencil
• Microsoft Office: Create a Shape
• MSDN Microsoft: Creating Visio Shapes

Resources

• Shape Source: Welcome to ShapeSource by Visimation
• Vis Guy: Create Clean & Tidy Visio Shapes Using Images With Transparent Backgrounds