One interesting feature of Visio that is not well documented is that you can create your own custom fill patterns, line patterns and line ends. For now, I will review the procedure for creating a semicircular line end. Something like:
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1) Open Drawing Explorer
2) Select New Pattern from Line Ends. Set the name. Set the scaled option.
3) Select the new master, right click and select Edit Pattern Shape.
4) Place a vertical and a horizontal guide line so they intersect at the center of the page. This will be the end point of the line.
5) Draw a circle, set the fill to none and then drop a vertical line over it’s center.
6) Select the circle and the line and choose Operations –> Trim from the Shape menu.
7) Deselect everything and then drag a selection box over the left side of the circle and the vertical line. Delete. This should leave you with the right side of the circle.
8) Place the center of the circle over the intersection point of the guidelines.
You will have to play with the sizing, but this should give you a semicircle line end and the line will end in the end of the circle. If you apply it to the start of the line, begin, it will be a “(” and it will be a “)” at the end. The assumption is that you want the line end at the end of the line placing it at the beginning will reverse it.
John… Visio MVP
this article is nice!
now, could you show me "custom fill" and "custom line pattern" (i don’t know how you call them in english)?
visGeek
http://visio.seesaa.net/
These are already on the list of things I want to write about.
Great article thanks, I’ve created my own line ends for modelling information systems. Now I have to make a line end with text in it say with a R appearing near the shape. I’ve tried several times to convert a text into a shape but whatever I do the text never appears in the end line. Any idea ?
Thanks for the article, I used it in work to make myself look clever 😉
One question, has anyone come across a situation where their custom line ends remain in place on a new line, but then the line itself no longer stretches to meet the ends? i.e. it seems to hit a maximum width and then there is an invisible join between the actual ends of the visible line and the line ends?
Bizarre and annoying!