Chapter 16. Measuring and Dimensioning with Precision

What good would Microsoft Office Visio 2007 be to you if your drawings weren’t accurate? You would merely have a representation of what you need, not what you truly need. But to get the accuracy you need, you can’t spend all of your time tediously measuring every individual shape, rather than tending to all the other tasks that go into detailed technical drawings such as architectural or facilities management plans.

Accuracy always matters, but in some cases, it’s crucial. What if a brain surgeon didn’t cut into your skull in the right spot? Unlike brain surgery, using Office Visio 2007 to make your drawings accurate is not a life-or-death situation. Neither is Visio 2007 as complicated as brain surgery. A computer-aided design (CAD) program is more accurate than Visio 2007, which was never intended to replace full-fledged CAD systems.

This chapter tells you how to set up scaled drawings, position shapes precisely, display measurements, and work with the many drawing aids that can help you draw and position shapes with precision. Even if you’re not drawing to scale and just want to align and distribute shapes perfectly, this chapter can tell you how.