Tutorial: How to draw abnormal filled-in shapes in Visio
This week I learnt how to draw abnormal filled-in shapes in Visio, and it is actually easy to do. I’m using Visio 2003 so other versions may differ slightly. For my example I start with 6 boxes and want to draw a shape around the 4 orange ones. I start by using the Line Tool, which is part of the Drawing toolbar. I then draw my first line segment and then continue it with a new line segment where the other one stopped, and continue until I get back to where I started. Changing back to the normal pointer once the shape is complete allows you to then tinker with it a bit. The first task I do at this point is to send the Shape to the Back. I then change the colour using a transparency of 80%. and finish by rounding off the line corners. You can actually also use the same technique with the freehand drawing tool too. Thanks to http://help.lockergnome.com/office2/Irregular-Shapes-Visio--ftopict803521.html for the tutorial steps.