Visio thinks an invisible line is present during line routing, but can't select it otherwise

[Richard Lewis Haggard]

I spent hours making a big flow chart only to notice when I'd finished that
Visio thinks that there is an invisible long line that extends vertically up
about 3/4 of the chart. At least I think that's what Visio thinks. The line
is invisible so it is somewhat hard to see. The only reason I know it's
there is because all of the lines that cross it have that little cross over
hump in them. How can I get rid of this invisible line?

 

[Lori Pearce [MSFT]]

It may be an invisible line or it may be an alignment bounding box that is
way too big.

If the drawing doesn't have 100's of shapes, finding a overly-large bounding
box is just a matter of selecting shapes one by one and seeing where the
green handles are. If you find one that is way out of wack, then select
Shape>Operations>Update Alignment Box.

Save a copy of the file first. Then getting rid of an invisible line could
be as easy as Edit->Select All then selecting a line color and weight that
would be visible...of course that action will change everything on your
drawing. Try using box select in the region you think the line is and
trying the same trick.

You might also check to see if you have any invisible layers in the Layer
Properties dialog box.

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

Do Ctrl-A to select all the shapes, this will include the annoying line.

Now, while holding the Ctrl key, click on each shape you want to keep. This
will deselect each shape and leave you with only the line selected.

Delete

John... Visio MVP

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[John Marshall, MVP]

Alternatively, you can zoom out and try and drag a selection rectangle
around the line. You can use the Ctrl-Click to remove unwanted items from
the select.

If you do a Ctrl-A or drag across an area, Visio will display a box
indicating what has been selected. As you remove items from the selection
list, the box decreases in size. This will give an indication of what may be
selected. If you zoom out after doing a Ctrl-A then the box will give an
indication of whether any items on the page go beyond the visible page.

John... Visio MVP

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[Doug.S]

With nothing selected, hit tab key which will select an object, keep hitting
tab key until it finds your unwanted line...tab key rotates thru each object
one at a time. Works in PowerPoint same way too.

Doug.S

 

[John Marshall, MVP]

Definitely a more elegant solution, but one minor point, the tab key changes
the focus to the next shape. You need to hit Enter once the desired shape is
in focus to select it.

John... Visio MVP

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