alphabetically sort an organizational chart in Visio 2003

[Jeff Eckstein]

While importing data from a file into an organizational chart in Visio 2002,
the diagram shapes are automatically sorted alphabetically. In Visio 2003
and 2007 this is now done randomly it seems. I don't see any feature in
Visio 2003 or 2007 to alphabetically sort my data in an organization chart.
Suggestions please.

thanks,

Jeff Eckstein
Computer Operations
Digi-Key Corporation
(e-mail address removed)

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

Sorry, but you must have been lucky. Visio has always placed the positions
at random. That is one of my longest complaints, that Visio placed the
positions at random rather than respecting the order in whci they were
entered.

John... Visio MVP

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[Jeff Eckstein]

Thanks for your input John, that was my first thought as well, but I ran five
consecutive imports with the save results everytime (alphabetized) in Visio
2002. However, I get a different randomized version each time in versions
2003 and 2007. I did notice that the Auto-Arrange Shapes feature in version
2002 went away in versions 2003 and 2007. It does seem conclusive that in
later version everything is randomized. I may have to resort write a macro
for this feature if I don't hear any other input.