Chapter 4. Adding Text to Shapes and Diagrams

Life is complicated; that’s why Microsoft Office Visio 2007 is designed to be as simple as possible. One of the simplicity bonuses Office Visio 2007 offers is the ability to insert text with ease. Visio 2007 is created with the idea that any shape can have text. It’s simple; all you have to do to insert text is click where you want the text to appear and type. The text is then formatted attractively and is located exactly where you need it.

In theory, you should never have to worry much about text. Visio 2007 does it for you. This feature keeps people from spending a lot of time formatting and positioning text in their diagrams. In this chapter, text refers to lists, labels, notes, callouts, legends, tables, titles or title blocks, and so on. Visio 2007 even has shapes and stencils whose specific job is adding text to a diagram. For example, title block shapes on the Borders And Titles stencil make it easy to add preformatted titles to a diagram, and callout shapes are great for improving a diagram because of their ability to act as labels.

Even with this simplicity, you might want to further enhance your text. Perhaps you desire to adjust the built-in formatting of a shape’s text, or maybe you just want to understand why Visio 2007 doesn’t work like Microsoft Office Word 2007, or why some shapes don’t obey the usual click-and-type rule. This chapter will provide the answers and details you need to work with text in Visio 2007.