Starting from an Existing Floor Plan
If you already have a building shell in the form of an existing CAD drawing or Visio drawing file, you can use it in a new floor, home, office, plant, or site layout. The way you use the existing building shell depends on its file format, as follows:
Use a CAD drawing If the existing floor plan is a CAD drawing, you can insert it into a Visio 2007 drawing. Your best bet is to insert it on a background page and then assign that background to foreground pages so that you can see the drawing while you add other shapes.
Use a Visio drawing If the existing floor plan is a Visio drawing, you can copy the drawing and then paste it into your drawing. You can paste the floor plan on a background page so that it appears on every foreground page or use its built-in layers to lock the shapes in the floor plan against editing by simply locking the layers that contain the shapes’ layer.
Using a Floor Plan from a CAD Drawing
Follow these steps to start a new floor plan and insert a CAD drawing:
1. | Choose File, New, Maps And Floor Plans, and then choose the template you want to use. |
2. | Choose File, Page Setup. On the Page Size tab, verify that the drawing uses the size settings you want, and then make any changes needed. Then click the Drawing Scale tab, verify that the scale is the one you want, and make any changes. Click OK. For details about setting up page size and drawing scale, see the section titled “Setting Up Measurements in a Diagram” in Chapter 16. |
3. | Click Insert, CAD Drawing. |
4. | Locate and select the CAD file, and then click Open. The CAD Drawing Properties dialog box appears and displays the General tab. Visio 2007 chooses a custom drawing scale for the CAD drawing that makes the drawing fit on the page. The Lock Size And Position check box is selected. |
5. | Click OK. Note If you don’t get the results you want, you can delete the inserted image and then start over using different settings in the CAD Drawing Properties dialog box. For details about your options, see the section titled “Importing CAD Drawings in Visio 2007” in Chapter 17. |
6. | To use the inserted drawing as a background, choose File, Page Setup, and click the Page Properties tab. For Type, select Background, and then click OK. |
For details about background pages and adding foreground pages that use the background, see the section titled “Moving a Building Shell to the Background” earlier in this chapter.
Copying an Existing Visio Floor Plan
When you want to use parts of an existing Visio drawing (or the whole thing) in a new drawing, it can be as easy as copying from one drawing and pasting into the other. You will need to consider whether the two drawings use the same or a similar drawing scale, however. Scaled shapes, such as furniture, walls, and so on, are designed to work in different drawing scales. When Visio 2007 pastes scaled shapes, it converts them to the new page’s drawing scale. Usually there’s no problem pasting from one drawing scale to another unless the drawings use dramatically different scales (that is, more than eight times larger or smaller).
Follow these steps to copy an existing Visio floor plan drawing into a new drawing:
1. | Choose File, New, Maps And Floor Plans, and then choose the template you want to use. |
2. | Choose File, Page Setup. On the Page Size tab, verify that the drawing uses the size settings you want, and make any changes. Then click the Drawing Scale tab, and verify that the scale is the one you want, and make any changes. Click OK. For details about setting up page size and drawing scale, see the section titled “Setting Up Measurements in a Diagram” in Chapter 16. |
3. | Choose File, Open, and then locate and select the existing Visio drawing containing the floor plan you want to use. Click OK to open the drawing in a new window. |
4. | In the existing floor plan drawing, select the shapes you want to use, and then select Edit, Copy. Or make sure nothing is selected and choose Edit, Copy Drawing to copy everything on the page. You can also select the shapes and then copy them by pressing Ctrl+C. |
5. | Choose Window, and then choose the name of the new drawing file. |
6. | To paste the shapes on the current page, select Edit, Paste, or press Ctrl+V. |
For details about background pages and adding foreground pages that use the background, see “Moving a Building Shell to the Background” earlier in this chapter.
Troubleshooting: Copied shapes look out of proportion when pasted into a scaled drawingIf you copy shapes from one drawing and then paste them into a scaled drawing, such as a floor plan, the shapes might look too large or too small in some cases. The problem could be that the drawing scales of the two Visio drawings are out of range. To change the new drawing’s scale to match the existing one, choose File, Page Setup, click the Drawing Scale tab, and then select a new drawing scale. |
For details about drawing scale issues, see the section titled “Working with a Drawing Scale” in Chapter 16.
Note
You can lock the layers of the existing Visio drawing. By doing so, you can create a new drawing on top of the existing drawing without accidentally changing the existing one. For details, see the section titled “Using Layers to Protect, Hide, and Organize Shapes” in Chapter 16.