13. Unique Needs: Touchscreens, Custom Templates, and Complex Printing Concerns
In This Chapter
• How will a touchscreen allow me to reach out and touch Visio 2013?
• How can I create my own templates?
• How can I avoid print nightmares when printing tiled Visio drawings?
• How can I avoid problems by looking before I print multipage drawings?
It is increasingly common to use touchscreens when working with applications and software, but finding your way around the Visio touch interface is a unique situation. This chapter looks at the ways tools have been modified in Visio 2013 to facilitate touch.
Businesses and organizations have unique needs and standards. When preparing Visio content, you can save lots of time by preparing your own templates to reflect the colors, logos, and other standards that set your organization apart.
In this chapter, you look at how to print tiled print jobs with a minimum of fuss and consider other suggestions for simplifying your complex printing needs.
Touchscreens
Tablets and touchscreens are not new; however, it is only with Windows 7 and Windows 8 that you are seeing equipment that works well with true multitouch input devices. Some tablets can run Windows 8 Professional, which makes them a viable option in corporate environments where security has always been a concern and full professional versions of the Windows operating system now allow network administrators to manage tablets as they would any other computer. As a result of these factors, Office 2013 products have included special touchscreen interface tools.
Switching Between Touch Mode and Mouse Mode
If you have Visio 2013 installed on a touchscreen device, you likely have the Touch Mode enabled by default. This is a special mode that dramatically changes your tools layout to facilitate the touch interface. Notice Figure 13.1 has a normal layout.
FIGURE 13.1 Touch mode should be visible on your Quick Access toolbar; if not, enable the Touch/Mouse Mode control by selecting it.
To reveal the Touch mode, you may need to first select it in the Quick Access toolbar, as shown in Figure 13.1. It appears in the bar and enables you to easily switch between Mouse mode and Touch mode, as you can see in Figure 13.2. As you can see, the ribbon is bigger and the spacing between buttons is increased. This allows you to avoid selecting the wrong command when using your finger.
Note
When you jump between Touch mode and Mouse mode, the change affects all Office 2013 applications. Closing Visio 2013 does not toggle the mode, so it is important to understand the behavior. The same behavior is true if you switch modes in a different Office application, such as Excel 2013. Visio’s interface switches as well.
Working with Shapes
Working with shapes is easy and intuitive when using a touchscreen. Touch to select a shape in your stencil and then drag it over with a finger to place on your drawing, as shown in Figure 13.3. You can draw shapes freehand and even fine-tune shapes when resizing, just as you would with a mouse. Many of the tools in Visio assist with moving and resizing with touch and provide visual cues and snap positioning.
FIGURE 13.3 Using just touch, you can easily add shapes from stencils, draw freehand shapes, or resize shapes.
Selecting multiple shapes is easy if you hold the Ctrl key and touch multiple shapes and connectors, as shown in Figure 13.4. You can also touch and hold an object, and then select additional objects by touch while holding the first one.
General Touch Controls
Menus and controls are often sensitive to touch. If you open a context menu, sometimes called a minibar, using a mouse while in Touch mode, a standard menu appears because Visio knows a mouse click was used. However, if you open the same minibar using touch, the layout has the same generous spacing as seen in the tabs. Figure 13.5 shows how these context menus or minibars appear when triggered by a touch.
FIGURE 13.5 Don’t worry about having large fingers; touch-sensitive menus have plenty of space between options.
Even menus that are opened from the ribbon interface behave this way. A mouse-click opens the normal tightly spaced interface, whereas Figure 13.6 shows touch-friendly spacing for selecting colors.
Working with text is easy, too. Select a shape with text, and touch again to enter Text mode. You see a control handle with a round blue circle below the text. Touch and drag the handle to highlight the text you want to edit, as shown in Figure 13.7. In the minibar that appears, you see basic text editing tools.
You can use other common gestures to interact with applications using a touchscreen; these actions also work in Visio:
• You can zoom in and out by using two fingers at the same time. Pinch two fingers together to zoom out; spread the fingers apart to zoom in.
• You can scroll by swiping up/down or left/right in a scrollable area.
• Tap to get the results of a single mouse click.
• Double-tap is the equivalent of a double-click.
• To simulate a right-click with a mouse, press and hold a couple of seconds. A black square box can often be seen to let you know Visio displays right-click content when you remove your finger.
The Touch Keyboard
Windows has improved the touch keyboard with Windows 8. If you use or plan to use a touch keyboard occasionally when working with Visio, use the keyboard designed specifically for the operating system. Figure 13.8 shows the keyboard for Windows 8. Notice the button on the taskbar that brings up the keyboard as needed. In many situations the keyboard is present when text entry is expected. Another nice feature in Windows 8 is that it shifts your text field on the screen so that the keyboard does not obscure what you are typing. When you finish with the keyboard, you can tap outside of the text field, and the keyboard minimizes back to the taskbar. Otherwise, use the Close button (X) to close the keyboard.
Creating Your Very Own Template
Chapter 3, “Working with Basic Diagrams,” looked at templates and stated that they basically provide an advanced starting point for drawings. When creating new drawings, rather than starting from a blank page or using a close-enough template, you may find it easier to address your unique needs by creating and saving your own templates. This enables you to include content and other settings that fit with the distinctive standards of your organization. Custom templates save you time when you often use the same basic settings and tools and want these available when starting new drawings.
With a template you can save the following:
• Page size and scale settings
• Window size
• Shape stencils and styles
• Color palette
• Settings for snap, layers, and glue
• Print preferences
• Backgrounds and logos
When you want to create a custom template, follow these steps:
1. Open a drawing you have already created, or start a new drawing with one of the templates that you would like to modify. Any content on the pages becomes part of the template, so remove shapes and content you do not want to include.
2. Open any custom stencils that you have created, or open additional ones that you want to include in this template. Close any stencils you do not need (see Figure 13.9).
3. Open the Page Setup dialog box and verify the settings you want to include in this stencil. Note especially the Print Setup and Layout and Routing tabs (see Figure 13.10).
FIGURE 13.10 Make sure you have the correct properties selected for printing and layout in the Page Setup dialog box.
4. Select a theme from the Theme gallery, or better yet, customize the color palette for this template to match your company colors.
5. If you want to include basic elements on your pages, create a background page. Add options like text fields, a company logo, or background image, as shown in Figure 13.11.
FIGURE 13.11 You can add elements to your background page that you want to include in pages by default.
6. Open any task panes that you want to have available when working with this template.
7. Open the File menu, and click Save As.
8. Type a name for your template and make sure you change the Save as Type to Visio Template (see Figure 13.12).
9. Select the location where you want to save your template and then click Save.
To test your template, close Visio. When you next open Visio you likely see the template listed under Recent content. You can pin your new template to the Recent list by right-clicking and enabling the pin. Double-click to open the template file. Figure 13.13 shows the results of opening the template just saved in the previous steps.
FIGURE 13.13 New drawings that you open from your template have all the groundwork done that you included in your template.
→ To learn more about templates, see page 42.
→ To learn more about creating a custom theme, see page 73.
→ To learn more about creating personalized stencils, see page 91.
A Look at Complex and Multipage Print Jobs
Chapter 11, “Printing Visio Diagrams,” covers most common types of single-page print jobs; however, at times you may need to print large diagrams across several pages (called tiled drawings), or you may have issues when you need to print multipage drawings that have different page orientations and settings. This section considers those unique scenarios as well as how to quickly combine Visio pages for printing.
Printing Tiled Drawings
I doubt anyone likes to print tiled drawings. It would be so much nicer to have a huge color plotter that could print laminated diagrams with a simple click to the Print button. Alas, that is not an option for most of us. Anticipating this situation, Visio allows you to manage tiled print jobs with a minimum of fuss.
Notice in Figure 13.14 that a large diagram has been created. It is practical when working on large print diagrams to ensure that page breaks are visible. Enable this visual aid from the View tab in the Show tool set. In this case it looks like some shapes were placed right where the pages split.
Another aid is the Print Preview pane. To consult this, open the File tab and choose Print. You can see in Figure 13.15 that the shapes are indeed split up at the page break. Does this mean you need to rearrange everything? Or do you need to move shapes around to find the least-bad page split option?
Tip
Don’t panic if you see only dotted lines indicating page breaks and do not see separate pages when using Print Preview. Use the Show/Hide Page Breaks button that is unlabeled down to the left of the zoom controls at the bottom of the Print Preview screen. You can see this displayed in Figure 13.15. Click to toggle this visual effect.
You can fix this with a simple click. From the Home tab, expand the Position button, and select Move Off Page Breaks. Figure 13.16 shows how the diagram is automatically adjusted to avoid problems caused by page breaks.
Using Page Scale
If you need to change the size of a drawing for printing, you have a couple of ways to manually dictate the print scale without altering your drawing.
Caution
Be aware that using these techniques to print using a different scale will affect drawings that rely on scale. Plans may be rendered to show that each quarter inch is equal to a foot, for example. Changing the print scale to 90 percent of the drawing negates the accuracy of the drawing scale. A visual scale symbol or legend can, therefore, be a practical element to include in plans. You might also consider including a disclaimer in altered printed copies to avoid confusion.
To shrink a large diagram to force it to print on a single page:
1. Open the Page Setup dialog box by right-clicking the page tab from the drawing window, or select the Page Setup link from the bottom of the Print options.
2. In the Print Zoom area of the Print Setup tab, select Fit To; notice in Figure 13.17 that the default of 1 sheet across and 1 sheet down are filled in already. Notice also to the right that your drawing page has different dimensions than the printer paper. Click OK.
Consult your Print Preview to verify the results before you print. Because large diagrams are scaled down to fit onto a single page, you may not be able to read the text. You can select different values for sheets across and sheets down and use the previous suggestions for working with tiled drawings to fix any page break issue that you may see.
The second way to use scale is to select a scale percentage:
1. Open the Page Setup dialog box by right-clicking the Page tab from the drawing window, or select the Page Setup link from the bottom of the Print options.
2. In the Print Zoom area of the Print Setup tab, change the value of Adjust To from 100% to a larger or smaller value. You can select from a drop-down list or type in a value as shown in Figure 13.18. Notice that the Print Setup preview shows that page breaks are used. Click OK.
Check your layout and use the suggestions for correcting page break issues noted previously in “Printing Tiled Drawings.”
Using Avoid Page Breaks
When working with many diagram types, you might use the Auto Align or Auto Space options to clean up a diagram. If you plan to print the diagram, it is good to enable the Avoid Page Breaks tool. This ensures that these tools respect page breaks when doing their magic. Figure 13.19 shows the beginnings of a messy flowchart. Notice that the Avoid Page Breaks option has been enabled after selecting the Positions button. Figure 13.20 shows how the Auto Align feature fixes the alignment issues and avoids the page break.
FIGURE 13.20 The Avoid Page Breaks tool adds awareness to the Spacing and Positioning tools which influences how tools like Auto-Align move shapes around a page break.
→ To learn more about using tools like Auto Space and Auto Align, see page 108.
Printing Mixed Orientation Drawings
Visio manages the printing of drawings at the page level. This allows you to have a variety of pages in a single Visio file that can have very different settings. This is not all that unusual because many people include supplementary pages with close ups, secondary information for a large diagram, title pages, backgrounds, and titles and header fields all in the same Visio drawing file.
When printing, make sure that the print settings for each page give you satisfactory results. If all your pages are combined into a handout at a meeting, you may not want landscape and portrait orientations. Paper sizes may have been set differently for one page than the rest, and this may present additional problems if the printer you send this to cannot handle one or more paper sizes.
Besides consulting the page setup properties for each page, the Print Preview feature can be especially helpful because you can browse through your pages and even zoom in and out to verify that pages are set up correctly. The Settings area in the Print window reflects the settings for the specific page previewed. Figure 13.21 shows that page 3 has a landscape orientation, and the paper size indicated is A4. This is a problem because that printer handles only letter-size paper right now.
Combine Drawings into a Single Sheet
I have always liked the feature in Power Point that allows you to print master or handout notes so that you can keep presentation notes along with smaller versions of slides. I have also seen times when a page from one Visio drawing had content that would be nice to quickly add to another Visio file before printing. You can likely think of other times you have wanted to quickly combine pages or content into a single printed Visio page.
In Visio, there are a few ways to accomplish this. The most common method employed is usually copy and paste, which you may have used with good or bad results. It can be unpredictable at times, and you might wind up fighting with format and automatic alignment settings before you can print.
If you intend to print, you might be especially pleased with the results of exporting and inserting images. Figure 13.22 shows the results of using Export to save two Visio drawing pages to the EMF Enhanced Metafile graphic file format. These were then inserted using the Pictures button located on the Insert tab. Notice that when selected, you see a contextual Picture Tools tab because these are image files. This format works well for resizing, and you can then position and add additional shapes or text before printing.
→ To learn more about Exporting to graphic file formats, see page 240.