# Edit Visio objects inserted into Word



## Elbert (Apr 7, 2004)

Hi,

I need to insert a lot of Visio drawings into Word documents. I prefer to edit the drawings in a full Visio Window rather than in place. When I return to Word, I want the drawing to be sized to fit the drawing contents.

I figured out how to get Visio to open in a full window when in Word I do Insert|Object|Visio Drawing: in the registry I added EditInPlaceOnInsertObject=0. When I exit from Visio back to Word, it sizes to fit the drawing contents, too.

But I can't get the same things to happen when I open a previously inserted drawing to edit it. If I double click the object, it opens in place rather than in a separate window, so I have to right click it and choose Visio Object|Open. But when it opens, the shapes take up the entire drawing page. If I want to add something to the drawing, I do File|Page Setup|Page Size|Predefined Size|Standard to put the shapes on a larger page. But then they're scrunched in the lower left corner, so I do Edit|Select All, grab them, and move them somewhere else to get more room. Then the zoom factor is different than it was when I first made the drawing, so I may have to change the zoom to get a shape size that's convenient to work with. And when I exit Visio back to Word, Visio doesn't automatically size to fit to the drawing contents, so I have to remember to do File|Page Setup|Page Size|Size to fit drawing contents before I go back to Word.

I had been using SmartDraw to make drawings. To edit an already-inserted drawing, I'd double click it to open it in a full window. SmartDraw would put the shapes back on the same size page and zoom factor as when I created the drawing, and when I exited back to word, it would size to fit drawing contents.

I now need to use Visio, and would like for it to work like SmartDraw did. Is ther another registry setting or other change I could make to get it to work the way I'd like?

Many thanks for any help.

Elbert


----------



## Anne Troy (Feb 14, 1999)

Good luck, Elbert. I've never been one to edit within the *host* application much. I always create a separate file and then insert it. Best I could offer would be to make sure you have the most recent updates of both programs.


----------



## Elbert (Apr 7, 2004)

Dreamboat,

Thanks for wishing me luck. I crank out educational materials, and I may decide next year to make changes to what I wrote this year. Being able to just double click on a drawing and have it open ready for changes is a great convenience. Otherwise, I have to copy the drawing to the clipboard, start Visio, try to remember what template I used, paste the drawing into Visio, change it, select all or fit to contents, copy it, and paste it back into Word. Etc., etc. 

After a few hundred pages of this, it gets tedious. Isn't there some way to make it work conveniently? I'll bet that if Bill Gates had to do what I do, it would work the way I think it should.

Thanks again, 
Elbert


----------



## joco22 (Apr 17, 2004)

What versions of MS Word and MS Visio are you using?


----------



## Elbert (Apr 7, 2004)

Hi joco22,

Word 2003 (11.6113.5703)
Visio 2003 (11.3216.5703)

Elbert


----------



## joco22 (Apr 17, 2004)

Hi, Elbert.

I am a bit puzzled. I am using Word 2000 and Visio 2000.

If I open a Word document, and go to Insert > Object > Microsoft Visio Drawing, alter the drawing a bit, save the Word document, all is well.

If I then click on the Visio object in the Word document, click Edit > Visio Object > Open, the Visio object is opened in its own full window in Visio. If I edit the Visio Drawing, it can be save in Visio as a Copy. All of the edits made show up, in perfect scale, in the Word document. 

I have probably missed your point entirely, and I apologize for that. Although starting with a Visio drawing and importing it into a Word document is a scaling headache, starting with a Word document, then adding a Visio drawing to the Word document seems to work very nicely, with the option of saving the Visio drawing as a separate item and working on the Visio drawing in a full window. 

So the main difficulty, in my (probably too simple) analysis seems to be the problem of where the Visio drawing is initiated. If it is started in Word, as outlined above, Word and Visio appear to work very well together.

Please let me know how I've missed the point, which I suspect I have.


----------



## Elbert (Apr 7, 2004)

Hi Joco22,

When I click on the Visio object in Word then do Edit|Visio object|open, the drawing opens in a new instance of Visio, but the drawing takes up the entire page--that is, it has been sized to fit drawing contents, just as if in Visio I'd done file|page setup|page size|size to fit drawing contents. If I need to add something to the drawing that would make it bigger, I have to go through all kinds of gyrations to get some space around it, then I have to do file|page setup|page size|size to fit drawing contents before returning to Word. 

Elbert


----------

