Keyboard Shortcuts

[Armstrong Wong]

How can I find the complete listing of Visio 2003 keyboard shortcut? In
particular, what's the keyboard shortcut for Distribute Shapes..?

Armstrong
Hong Konng

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

Launch Help and search on "keyboard shortcuts" to find a topic with all the
shortcuts. I do not believe there is a shortcut for Distribute Shapes
though.

 

[Chad M. Clancy]

The help is not very helpful in this regard. I'm a Visio user since Version
1.0 (way back before the Microsoft buyout) and it looks like the
standardization police have gotten to Visio because some of the familiar
keyboard shortcuts are no longer the same and I cant find a complete set of
shortcut commands.

For example, for grouping and ungrouping shapes (something I do quite often)
the shorcut was CTRL+G and CTRL+U. This still works to group but the CTRL+U
is now used for underline. So, in trying to break my long time habits, I
underline just about everything. I still haven't found the shortcut to
ungroup (or even group for that matter). I'd also like to know where the
help documents all the other shape manipulation commands that still work.
Like CTRL-H for flip horizontal and CTRL-J for flip vertical, etc. There
were a handful of shortcuts that I used quite frequently and I'd like to
know that they still exist or what they've unfortunately been changed to.

Seems like a search for "keyboard shortcuts" in the help system should bring
up every shortcut that the program allows but that is surely not the case.

Any pointers would be appreciated.

Regards,

Chad

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

Will this help?
http://www.kbalertz.com/kb_281908.aspx

It's a list of changes to the shortcut keys for Visio 2002

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm

 

[Chad M. Clancy]

John,

That's a little better than what is in the help but not much because it only
shows what has changed from Visio 2000 to Visio 2002. That doesn't do new
users much good nor people like me who do not know all of the Visio 2000
shortcuts off the top of their heads. There should be a summary of ALL of
the keyboard shortcuts in the Visio help.

The other bothersome thing is that when I go into the help system for Visio,
it seems to be integrated into the Office help so any search that I do is
cluttered with results for all of the Office programs - what a pain. I
don't need keyboard shortcuts for MS Word (at least at the moment), just
Visio. Microsoft sure is doing a bang up job of making this product
unusable. Makes you wish Shapeware was still the owner.

Sorry about the rant but I think that Microsoft has dropped the quality of
this product a couple notches. Many years ago I purchased a copy of Visio
Home for $5 and in most respects it is better than Visio Standard.

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

The link I provided was to address the issue of changes you mentioned.

The following link may be better for new users.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HP010506231033.aspx

Visio 2002 was the first real release of Visio by Microsoft, the previous
release of Visio, MS Visio 2000 was a repackaged version of the last release
of Visio 2000 by Visio. In addition to some service patches, MS Visio 2000
included MS branding.

So with a real MS release, came the need for changes that brought Visio more
inline with the other Office products. So some of the short keys had to
change. It was not a radical change, because Visio has followed MS
guidelines since the beginning. (A light version of Visio 1 was included on
a Microsoft sampler disc and Visio was the first non MS product that used a
full version of VBA)

Microsoft is well aware of the fact that they dropped the ball on Help.
Visio is not the only product complaining that Help is hard to use, a
nuisance and incomplete. They are actively looking at solving the problem
forthe next release.

Though the combination of Visio Pro and Visio Technical into one product is
a good step forward, the abandonning of certain filters and stencil is a few
steps back. There have been a number of improvements to the shape model and
other tools (the addition of a macro recorder) that still make Visio 2003 an
excellent product.

John... Visio MVP

Need stencils or ideas? http://www.mvps.org/visio/3rdparty.htm
Need VBA examples? http://www.mvps.org/visio/VBA.htm
Common Visio Questions http://www.mvps.org/visio/common_questions.htm

 

[Chad M. Clancy]

Thanks John, the link you provided appears to be what I was looking for (and
expecting to be included as part of the help). I don't know if it is a
complete list but it does appear to have all of the shortcuts that I was
accustomed to using.

I'm sorry if it appears that I have a negative attitude about Visio since it
was taken over by Microsoft. I was an early Visio fan and I wanted to see
it do well even if under Microsoft. I'm also a big time Excel user and I
think that it is and has been unmatched by any other spreadsheet for quite
some time. I was hoping to see an acceleration of the introduction of new
features available in even the most basic versions of Visio under Microsoft
but thus far that hasn't happened. The implementation of a full VBA for
Visio is definitely a step in the right direction but some of the other
misteps are both suprising and dissapointing so I hope they can get things
right in the next version. I definitely think that the Help system leaves a
lot to be desired, especially in Visio but also in the other products that
comprise the Office suite.

One major feature that I think is lacking in Visio that I have hoped for
since its early versions is true 3-D capability (not just some 3-D shapes).
This is one thing that I think would make this product a true technical
drawing tool for those who want to do some 3-D drafting but do not want to
make the leap to a full-fleged CADD program. Do you know if this has ever
been seriously considered or if it is planned for a future release? I
realise that this would be a major undertaking but Microsoft could certainly
handle the job if they wanted to.

Beyond that I'd like to see seamless operation between Excel and Visio that
would allow for easy to set up parametric drawing. I know this is possible
with VB but I think that at the very least there should be some wizards to
help people get a model up and going.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,

Chad Clancy

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

I'm sorry if it appears that I have a negative attitude about Visio since
it was taken over by Microsoft.

You are not the only one. The biggest complaint has been about features that
have been removed.

One major feature that I think is lacking in Visio that I have hoped for
since its early versions is true 3-D capability (not just some 3-D
shapes). This is one thing that I think would make this product a true
technical drawing tool for those who want to do some 3-D drafting but do
not want to make the leap to a full-fleged CADD program. Do you know if
this has ever been seriously considered or if it is planned for a future
release?

It has been considered in the past and there was always the issue as to
whether Visio was a business graphics or CAD. For a while they did offer
IntelliCad as a form of of CAD, but I believe, they want to stick to the 2D
world.

Beyond that I'd like to see seamless operation between Excel and Visio
that would allow for easy to set up parametric drawing. I know this is
possible with VB but I think that at the very least there should be some
wizards to help people get a model up and going.

With Visio's open back end, this is possible, but not something for the
first timer. I guess the biggest issue for canned solutions is to try and
determine what is appropriate for the users. the open back end leaves all
the decisions to the users.

 

[Deb Howland]

I've updgraded to Visio 2003 Pro recently, and have been missing my favorite
keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T. It used to edit text in any shape, and now does a
replace text. Is there anyway to get back an 'edit text' keyboard shortcut?

Double clicking on a shape doesn't always work, esepcially when shapes are
grouped.

It seems that the text tool might work, but I am unable to assign a keyboard
shortcut to it, and it would also require an extra step of going back to the
pointer tool after editing.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

F2 still works for text edit.

 

[Mark Nelson [MS]]

It's great to hear feedback from longtime users who can make comparisons
over multiple releases. As you have pointed out, each new release has not
always maintained the behavior or feature set from previous releases. The
product team has been much more attuned to these issues lately, and we
intend to improve our performance here.

Help is an area where the previous Visio team invested in Help more than
Office had, and thus Help suffered when Visio integrated with Office. While
I think we have much to improve, one benefit of the online content model now
being used is that many help topics have been updated since Visio 2003
shipped in response to complaints and feedback from customers.

As far as long term direction for Visio, it is highly unlikely that we would
move into the 3-D space. As a Microsoft product targeted at very broad
usage, that just doesn't work. Tighter integration with Excel including
data sharing is much more in line with the focus of the product. Visio is
about visualizing business information: organizational data, project data,
financial data, resource data, engineering data, all of it. It's a wide
spectrum of data types, so we are looking at integration and visualization
methods that work across the board. Display of spatial geometric models is
not applicable in enough scenarios. Don't worry though. There are plenty
of things we can and are doing to enhance the value for technical and
non-technical audiences alike.