Formatting Visio 2007 Diagrams for PowerPoint Slides

Text that looks fine in a Visio 2007 diagram can be too small to read on a PowerPoint 2007 slide. Frankly, this can be irritating when you want that flowchart or diagram to occupy a prominent and readable position in your presentation. The default text size for most Visio 2007 drawing types is 8 to 12 points, which is readable when printed or when you’re sitting nose-to-glass at your computer monitor. When copied onto a slide and projected onto a larger screen, however, the text can get lost. Well, actually it doesn’t get lost. It knows exactly where it is, but the viewer can’t see it.

A guideline for slide text that will be projected onto a large screen is to use 24-point type. In a Visio 2007 diagram that uses shapes formatted for 8-point to 12-point type, you will probably have to fuss a bit with both the shape size and the text format if you really want to make sure that the diagram’s text can be read in a big room.

Inside Out: Judging text readability To determine whether the text in your diagram will be readable in a projected presentation, step back from your computer monitor a distance of about eight times the width of the diagram. For example, for a diagram that’s 8 inches wide, step back about 5 feet (8 inches by 8, or 64 inches).

Formatting Visio 2007 Text for Slides

The simplest way to increase the font size of text in a diagram is to select the text or shapes you want to resize, and then enter a larger font size in the Font Size list on the Format Text toolbar.

Rather than type a font size (or select one for that matter), you can increment the font up or down to the size that you want. To do so, select the text and then press the Increase Text Size or Decrease Text Size icon on the Formatting Text toolbar.

If the text becomes too large to fit in the shape (which typically happens when you set text in a flowchart shape to 24 points), you can do one or both of the following:

Text Block tool

• Use the Text Block tool to move the position of the text without resizing the shape.

• Drag a selection handle on the shape to resize it to fit the text.

As discussed in other chapters about specific diagram types, some shapes require other methods for resizing text or include protection locks that prevent you from resizing or reformatting them. Refer to the chapter about your diagram type for more information about working with those shapes.

Quickly Copying Text Formats

Format Painter

If your diagram contains one shape with text that’s formatted the way you want, you can copy that format to any other shape. To do this, select the formatted shape, click the Format Painter button on the Standard toolbar, and then click the shape to which you want to apply the same format. To undo the results, press Ctrl+Z.

Using Themes to Format Text

If you’re working in a Visio 2007 template using themes to format the text, you can quickly format all the text to which a particular theme has been applied. It’s a good method for ensuring consistency, particularly in a diagram with many shapes, and can rapidly change the appearance of a diagram.

For example, in a flowchart, text in most of the basic flowchart shapes is formatted with the Flow Normal style, which is displayed in the Styles list on the Formatting toolbar when you select a shape, as Figure 13-2 shows. Select a shape in your diagram that contains text. Now choose Format, Theme (or click on the Theme icon on the Formatting tool bar) to display the Theme task pane. Select Theme-Effects (if it isn’t already displayed) by clicking the down arrow at the top of the task pane and choosing Theme-Effects. Click New Theme Effects at the bottom of the pane and click on the Text tab. Choose the font that you desire, and click Apply, OK. This magically changes all the text in your flowchart to the chosen font.

You can change the font of the text in a specific shape by right-clicking on the shape, choosing Format, Text, clicking the Font tab, selecting the font your heart desires, and then tapping the Apply and OK buttons (in that order).

Adjusting Visio 2007 Text Colors for PowerPoint

Besides making the text bigger, you can make Visio 2007 text more distinct by using a text color that contrasts sharply with the background. For presentations projected onto a large screen in a darkened room, light text on a dark background tends to be most readable. The dark background absorbs the light emitted by the projector, and the contrast with the light-colored foreground elements, such as your text, makes the slide more readable. If the Visio 2007 text is in a shape, make sure the text color and the shapes’ fill color contrast. If the Visio 2007 text is on a transparent background, so that the slide’s background shows through when you add the Visio 2007 diagram to PowerPoint 2007, you might have to change the text color in Visio 2007 for readability.

You can use one of the techniques mentioned earlier to format text with a different color (for example, use the Format Painter button or redefine the text style). You can also experiment with different colors in your diagram by applying a theme. White or yellow text is usually quite readable against a slide’s dark background, but not very readable on a white drawing page in Visio 2007. Light gray text on a white page in Visio 2007 is readable and also looks good against many of the dark backgrounds in PowerPoint 2007.

To apply a theme to a diagram, on the Format menu, click Theme. Choose a theme from the Theme task pane, as Figure 13-3 shows. If you don’t like the results, press Ctrl+Z to undo them.

Troubleshooting: You need text in Visio 2007 to be a specific color that doesn’t show up well on a slide What if you really don’t want to change the text color in Visio 2007? Try one of the following formatting ideas: Apply a background In a diagram without a background, adding a background shape from the Backgrounds stencil can make text stand out better. You can also create a background page manually (choose Insert, Page) and then apply it to the foreground. Draw a box behind shapes You can draw a box, and then fill it with solid color and move it behind the areas you want to set off. To move the box behind everything else, select it, and then choose Shape, Order, Send To Back.

Using Visio 2007 Themes to Match PowerPoint Colors

This is simplicity itself, and a great idea. By selecting Format, Theme you can apply a theme to any Visio 2007 drawing. Two parts comprise the Theme task pane: Theme-Effects and Theme-Colors. Theme-Effects allows you to chose the type of font, connector, and shape effects you wish for your diagram with a simple click of the mouse. The Theme-Colors pane allows you to choose the colors.

Better still, you can customize, mix, and match colors as you desire. At the bottom of the Theme task pane are the New Theme Effects and New Theme Colors links. These allow you to further customize the themes that you apply. We will discuss, in detail, how to apply and modify themes in Chapter 23. What is important to know is that the basic themes in Visio 2007 are the same as the themes in PowerPoint 2007; hence, to match your drawing to the PowerPoint 2007 presentation, you need only choose the same theme in both applications.