Microsoft Visio 2013 – Notes

Chapter 1 – Starting Diagrams

With Visio, you can use it to make block diagrams, charts, graphs, flowchart, network map and many more. Here’s the user interface of Microsoft Visio 2013 upon startup. You can pick Basic Diagram that contains basic geometric shapes, arrow shapes, and graph shapes. OR start with the Blank Drawing.

Steps for Blank Drawing

1. For Windows 7: On the taskbar, click the Start button > All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Visio 2013. For Windows 8: On the taskbar, click the Start button > Search > Microsoft Visio 2013.

2. Visio starts. Pick Metric Units and click Create. You will see a blank canvas. You can start searching for shapes by clicking Search on the left sidebar, or click Stencils > More Shapes and pick your desired criteria.

3. Snapshot on the right shows you a list of Network and Peripherals shapes. You can drag & drop directly on the canvas, resize it, and move it as you desire.

On the next page, here’s an example of Visio project:

Chapter 8 – Creating Network Diagrams

To create a network diagram, one has to determine a type of network ring or backbone which handles the major data traffic which we want to use. Then you drag the backbone shape onto the drawing page, followed by each hardware shape in the network. You can also add text to the shapes as you would any other Visio shape. It’s that easy.

1. Start Visio 2013. In the Choose Drawing Type window, click Categories > Network > Basic Network Diagram. Pick Metric Units and click Create. The template opens a blank drawing page and the Network and Peripherals as well as Computers and Monitors stencils.

2. From the Network and Peripherals stencil, drag an Ethernet shape to the center of the drawing page.

3. Click the Computers and Monitors stencil.4. From the Computers and Monitors stencil, drag a laptop computer shape onto the drawing page, and position it above and below the

5. Select the Ethernet shape. Position the pointer over the yellow, upper-left control handle on the the connection point in the middle of the upper-left laptop computer shape.

6. Visio connects the two shapes. The connector remains selected and the endpoint is green, indicating that it is glued to the laptop computer shape. Repeat the steps for all

shapes.

7. All four laptops are connected to the Ethernet shape.

8. Click the Network and Peripherals stencil. Drag a Server shape onto the drawing page and position it to the right of the Ethernet shape. Then drag a Hub shape and position it to the left of the Ethernet shape.

9. Repeat step 5 and 6 until the Server shape and Hub shape are connected to the Ethernet shape.

10. Click the Computers and Monitors stencil. Drag a tablet device shape onto the drawing page, and position it above and to the right of the Ethernet shape.

11. Click the Network and Peripherals stencil. To indicate the transmission of data from the tablet device shape to the network, drag a Comm-link shape onto the drawing page, and position it anywhere in the top half of the diagram.

12. Drag the Comm-link shape’s endpoint to the connection point on the Ethernet shape and the tablet device shape, both on the left and right side.

13. Double-click the upper-left laptop computer shape to open the shape’s text block. Type Nazir, and then press the Esc key to close the shape’s text block. The shape remains selected and a new control handle appears on top of the shape text.

14. Drag the text above the Nazir shape to position the text above the shape.

15. Repeat step 13 and 14 for all laptops computer shape and type the name Aisyah, Fiza and Ika for each laptop.

16. On top of the Visio 2013 interface, click DESIGN > Backgrounds and select any background to be inserted onto the drawing page.

17. Visio adds a VBackground page to the drawing file and places the background shape on it.

18. Click the Borders and Titles stencil and drag the Title block sphere shape onto the drawing shape, and position it in the upper-left corner of the drawing page.

19. With the shape selected, click VBackground page and double-click on the Title block to open the shape’s text block.

20.

Within DESIGN pane, hover over the Themes (eg: Linear) and click to apply to the drawing table.

21. On the File menu, click Save. In the Save As dialog box, in the File name box, type Network.

22. In the Save As dialog box, click the Save button to save the diagram.