In Visio, how do you……
Back at the turn of the century I studied AutoCAD and worked in a professional office making architectural drawings. They used version 14 at that time, but I had a student version of 2000 with more bells and whistles. I got to be pretty good at the basic commands and even learned how to manipulate drawings in more advanced ways (which I would have to relearn if I was going to do this professionally again).
So my friend has a job where she must make simple drawings in Visio, and occasionally she will call me and ask me how to do certain things to copy the hand drawn sketches she is given. I was able to be a little help, but couldn’t believe the program was as limited as she was saying it is. Since she has been working from home I have had an opportunity to play with the program after work hours and I find it - - very limiting myself.
First there seems no equivalent of:
*Offset.
*Divide. (this would be SO very helpful!!)
*Mirror (there is a rotate object function that I can make work most of the time now)
*Cut and/or Extend.
*I have not found a way to choose what I snap to- and everything seems to want to snap somewhere.
*I cannot seem to copy from a specific point so I can paste to a specific related point.
*I cannot even specify where to put construction lines with any accuracy – best I have figured out is counting boxes on the grid.
*The arc function is absurd, and not always dynamic. When it is dynamic, it is not even a radius arc???
*I have not found a way to type a command or shortcut so I am constantly jumping up to a toolbar to change function.
The biggest challenge is that without a real radius arc, and no cut function, I am unable to create a partial circle unless I use this labor intensive and highly frustrating method:
I take a lead line from the templates, fatten it up to the size of the drawing lines, and then collapse it to a three point arc which CAN be used to create a useful shape - - - but it will immediately snap to any object it comes close to like a circle, square, or box; and that ruins the shape. To trace a portion of a circle, I must draw a line between the start and end point then draw a line to indicate the degree of arc- move that all away from the drawing to make the arc out of a four point lead line with one mid-point stacked on top of the start point……. And then move the circle away to place the arc. Pheew! Then to check it I have to use the arrows to move the circle back into place to check the arc - - and repeat the entire process on another portion of the circle if necessary.
Any help others might provide would be greatly appreciated. At least Visio has layers similar to AutoCAD so I can lock certain elements to avoid accidental disruption to parts of the drawing while making these ……… (well I don’t know what to call them?) …. redneck engineering solutions. I will be away most of the day today, but I would love to arrive home to better solutions to my problems than I have been able to find for myself. Thank you in advance.