Beginning ShapeSheet Exploration

To illustrate this concept, you should have Visio up and running. If you are using Visio 5.0, begin a new drawing based on Blank Drawing.VST. If you are using Visio 2000, create a new drawing based on Basic Diagram. When you have a Visio drawing page open in front of you, select the Rectangle Tool button from the toolbar. Click, drag out, and release to create a rectangle of any indeterminate size. Make sure that the rectangle you have just created is selected. You will know this by the green things (selection handles) displayed around the SmartShape symbol.

Now, you are going to perform a task that should become so innately familiar to you that it becomes your development mantra: from the menus, select Window, Show ShapeSheet, Window, Tile. If the developer toolbar is visible, you can select the Show ShapeSheet button rather than use the menu methodology. This is identical in both Visio 5.0 and Visio 2000. You will be presented with two windows: the Visio Drawing Page window and the ShapeSheet window.