Logo
programming4us
programming4us
programming4us
programming4us
Home
programming4us
XP
programming4us
Windows Vista
programming4us
Windows 7
programming4us
Windows Azure
programming4us
Windows Server
programming4us
Windows Phone
 
programming4us
Windows 7

Microsoft Visio 2010 : Working with Text (part 2) - Editing and Formatting Text

- How To Install Windows Server 2012 On VirtualBox
- How To Bypass Torrent Connection Blocking By Your ISP
- How To Install Actual Facebook App On Kindle Fire
2/17/2014 2:50:25 AM

Editing and Formatting Text

After a hard day of moving text blocks around, you might eventually want to type in some actual characters and format them.

Editing and formatting text in Visio isn’t much different than in any other Microsoft Office application. You can see that a good deal of the Home tab is dedicated to text-formatting controls, and there are plenty of options in the right-click mini-toolbar as well.

What’s more interesting are the Visio-specific quirks involved with text editing, which you investigate next.

Getting Into Text Edit Mode

The trick with shape text is getting into “text edit mode” so that you can get your mouse on individual words and characters. When you first add text to a shape, you simply select the shape and start typing. This naturally puts you in text edit mode until you deselect the shape. But how do you edit text that is already there? There are several ways to get into text edit mode to edit preexisting text:

  • Select a shape using the Text tool.

  • Select a shape with any tool; then press F2.

  • Double-click a shape. Text editing is Visio’s default behavior, but shape developers can override it, so not every shape will enter text edit mode via double-click.

Once in text edit mode, you can select runs of characters and format them, edit them, or delete them. Once finished, exit text edit mode by clicking a blank area on the page. If you want to keep the shape you are working on selected, press Esc instead.

Getting into Text Edit Mode for Subshapes in Groups

The easiest way to get into text edit mode for subshapes in a group is to subselect them with the Pointer tool and then press F2.

Although using the Text tool is the official way to edit text in Visio, it can be cumbersome when working with subshapes. First, you click on the group, which opens the text edit window for the group. If the text block obscures the subshapes (which it often does), it is impossible to get at the subshapes. You can then press Esc to reveal the subshapes, and finally click on one of them to open its text edit window. Like I said, cumbersome!

I personally almost never use the Text tool. I just double-click shapes or select and press F2. It’s much quicker and easier, once you’re used to it.


Formatting Text

When you’re in text edit mode, you can type, copy, paste, delete, and format ranges of characters as you would in any word processor.

Inside a shape’s text edit window, the world looks a bit different, as Figure 4 illustrates.

Figure 4. Text edit mode for a shape with rotated text and mixed text formatting. The mini-toolbar appears automatically when editing text, you don’t have to right-click to see it as you do when just editing shapes.

In Figure 4, notice the following:

  • There is a standard text ruler control. It lets you specify left, right, first, and hanging indents as well as tab stops. If you don’t see the ruler, right-click while editing text and check Text Ruler in the menu.

  • Text is edited right-side up, even though the text block is rotated on the shape. Although this causes some weird flashing, it’s easier than twisting your head to read the text.

  • Selected ranges of text can be formatted by right-clicking or by using the controls in the Ribbon.

  • The selection handles for the shape are not visible. Only the thin, blue dashed outline of the shape’s alignment box is visible, along with a second dashed outline around the text block.

Tabs and Alignment

The text ruler allows you to specify tab stops for neatly formatting columns of information. Just click anywhere on the ruler to insert a new tab. Existing tabs can be dragged to new positions. To delete a tab, drag the marker off the ruler and release the mouse button.

At first, you might conclude that tabs don’t work properly in Visio, The problem is that most Visio shapes have center-aligned text, and center-aligned text doesn’t work well (or make much sense) with tab stops!

If you need tabs for your shape text, right-align or justify-align the whole paragraph. Your tabs should look just fine once you’ve fixed the paragraph alignment.

Text Block Backgrounds

Sometimes your shape text is on top of geometry or other details that make the text hard to read. For that reason, a text block can have its own background color that obscures objects behind it and makes text easier to read.

In Figure 5, you see that the text for both the line and connector has an opaque white background. For lines and connectors, this is the default, since the text is very likely to be on top of the line.

Figure 5. Text on lines and connectors has an opaque background by default, but some shapes don’t.


For rectangles, text doesn’t have a background color by default, since the text is usually in the middle of the shape. In Figure 5, I’ve moved and rotated the text to the left side of the rectangle to create a low-budget container. On the top rectangle, you see how hard it is to read the text. The bottom rectangle is easier to read because an opaque, white background was added to the text.

To add background fills to text blocks, click the dialog box launcher for the Font or Paragraph group. In the dialog, select the Text Block tab. In the Text Background area, select a color from the drop-down control that matches the background of your drawing, and then click OK. Your text will be easier to read.

Other -----------------
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 11) - Inactivating Tasks
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 10) - Scheduling Summary Tasks Manually
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 9) - Viewing the Project’s Critical Path
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 8) - Setting Up a Recurring Task
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 7) - Entering Fixed Costs
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 6) - Entering Deadline Dates
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 5) - Changing Task Types
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 4) - Adjusting Working Time for Individual Tasks
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 3) - Interrupting Work on a Task
- Microsoft Project 2010 : Fine-Tuning Task Details (part 2) - Setting Task Constraints
 
 
Top 10
- Microsoft Visio 2013 : Adding Structure to Your Diagrams - Finding containers and lists in Visio (part 2) - Wireframes,Legends
- Microsoft Visio 2013 : Adding Structure to Your Diagrams - Finding containers and lists in Visio (part 1) - Swimlanes
- Microsoft Visio 2013 : Adding Structure to Your Diagrams - Formatting and sizing lists
- Microsoft Visio 2013 : Adding Structure to Your Diagrams - Adding shapes to lists
- Microsoft Visio 2013 : Adding Structure to Your Diagrams - Sizing containers
- Microsoft Access 2010 : Control Properties and Why to Use Them (part 3) - The Other Properties of a Control
- Microsoft Access 2010 : Control Properties and Why to Use Them (part 2) - The Data Properties of a Control
- Microsoft Access 2010 : Control Properties and Why to Use Them (part 1) - The Format Properties of a Control
- Microsoft Access 2010 : Form Properties and Why Should You Use Them - Working with the Properties Window
- Microsoft Visio 2013 : Using the Organization Chart Wizard with new data
- First look: Apple Watch

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 1)

- 3 Tips for Maintaining Your Cell Phone Battery (part 2)
programming4us programming4us
Popular tags
Microsoft Access Microsoft Excel Microsoft OneNote Microsoft PowerPoint Microsoft Project Microsoft Visio Microsoft Word Active Directory Biztalk Exchange Server Microsoft LynC Server Microsoft Dynamic Sharepoint Sql Server Windows Server 2008 Windows Server 2012 Windows 7 Windows 8 windows Phone 7 windows Phone 8
programming4us programming4us
 
programming4us
Natural Miscarriage
programming4us
Windows Vista
programming4us
Windows 7
programming4us
Windows Azure
programming4us
Windows Server
programming4us
Game Trailer