Instances doesn't get updated when the master stencil changes

[Maxwell2006]

Hi,

I am trying to create a stencil master shape in such way that when I change
the master, all instances also get updated according to the new master
shape.

At this point I have a master shape in a stencil and I have hundreds of
instances in different visio drawing based on the very same stencil. When I
change the master shape, I have to change all instances (several hundreds)
and this is such a pain.

How can I solve this problem?

Any help would be appreciated,
Max

 

[Paul Herber]

Hi,

I am trying to create a stencil master shape in such way that when I change
the master, all instances also get updated according to the new master
shape.

At this point I have a master shape in a stencil and I have hundreds of
instances in different visio drawing based on the very same stencil. When I
change the master shape, I have to change all instances (several hundreds)
and this is such a pain.

How can I solve this problem?

Edit the document master
File -> Shapes -> Show Document Stencil

 

[Maxwell2006]

Edit the document master
File -> Shapes -> Show Document Stencil

I've tried that. When I have 200 visio drawing files, I have to update the
document stencil for all 200 files. That is tedious. Is there any way that
with one change all 200 files get updated?

Thank you for help,
Max

 

[Paul Herber]

I've tried that. When I have 200 visio drawing files, I have to update the
document stencil for all 200 files. That is tedious. Is there any way that
with one change all 200 files get updated?

I don't know a way to do that, however, you might want to try a shape
substitute. One way to do this is in my sig below. Open the document
and do a shape substitution with the updated shape, there is an option
to repeat through all open documents. The number of documents you have
open at one time will depend upon how much memory you have and which
version of Visio.
P.S. You may need to substitute via some intermediate shape.

 

[vojo]

by the way this gets even better.

Assuming update a doc stencil for a given shape. The changes do not take
affect until the shape is accessed/selected. Ie just updating the doc
stencil does NOT ensure the shapes actually get updated.