Visio 2003 - How to add fill to "opening" or "window" shape?

[Bobbie Weeks (Ms)]

Hi All. I'm sorry if this is a basic question, but I'm a newbie to
Visio 2003. I'm doing building layouts and have managed ok so far,
but I'm stuck on one area which I thought would actually be quite
easy. I've added an "opening" shape to a wall but I want to change
the fill of the opening from plain white (which is defaults to), to
something else, say crossed pattern and different colour. I right-
click the opening and go to Format and have tried both line and fill,
but nothing seems to work. What and I doing wrong or should I be
using some other shape to do this? Any help would be appreciated.

 

[John Goldsmith_Visio_MVP]

Hello Bobbie,

The 'Opening' shape is actually a group shape and the middle space that
you're after is a sub-shape that's designed not to be selectable. However,
you can do this using the Drawing Explorer (View / Drawing Explorer Window):

With the Drawing Explorer window visible you'll see a hierachy of shapes in
your document. Navigate to your respective page, open the Shapes folder and
then find your 'Opening' shape. Once you've found the correct one, open its
Shapes folder and select the first shape you find. This should be the
sub-shape you're after and now it's selected you should be able to apply any
formating you like in the normal way.

If you want to do this for a number of shapes then I would think the easiest
way would be to change the selection behaviour of the Opening shape in your
Document stencil. To do this try the following:

1) Click File / Shapes / Show Document Stencil to make the document stencil
visible

2) Double click the Opening shape, which will open the master shape in edit
mode.

3) Select the resulting shape and click Window / Show ShapeSheet. Have a
quick read of the first half of this post for more info on the ShapeSheet:
http://visualsignals.typepad.co.uk/vislog/2007/10/just-for-starte.html

4) In the ShapeSheet, scroll down to the section named 'Group Properties'
and change the 'SelectMode' cell to 1 (this allows you to select sub
shapes).

5) Close the ShapeSheet and then close the Master editing window and click
'Yes' to propogate your changes to you instance shapes.

You should now be able to find an 'Opening' shape in your document and click
it twice to select the white sub-shape.

Hope that helps.

Best regards

John


John Goldsmith (Visio MVP)
www.visualSignals.typepad.co.uk
www.visualSignals.co.uk