Manage Visio Stencils

Quick reference

• 00:04 In the previous lesson, I showed you how to manage your favorites.
• 00:08 Well, let me show you where there's other stencils that you can manage as well.
• 00:10 You can't really change the stencils that come with Visio.
• 00:16 I can't add shapes to the existing stencils, but here's what you could do.
• 00:21 You can make up more of your own stencils.
• 00:23 So I can actually save this stencil as a different name and
• 00:28 then I can be able to change the one that I saved.
• 00:30 So if I right-click on the one that says Basic Flowchart Shapes, I'm going to
• 00:35 right-click on that stencil, I can save it and then give it a different name.
• 00:41 Notice how the folder is going to be Documents and then, My Shapes.
• 00:47 And then, I can save this.
• 00:49 So I'm going to call this my My Basic Flowchart Shapes.
• 00:54 And I'll pick on Save.
• 00:58 Okay, so now let me show you what just happened there.
• 01:02 I'll be able to change the ones that's called My Basic Shapes.
• 01:06 So I can actually pick up a shape and drag it into there.
• 01:10 And then, now that's part of that stencil you saved.
• 01:13 So let's see.
• 01:15 And then, of course, I would save that.
• 01:18 Now, if I come over here and pick on More Shapes and then My Shapes,
• 01:24 you'll see the Favorites, but I also see my new stencil that I just made.
• 01:30 So you can actually make up your own stencils by saving a stencil,
• 01:35 or look what you can do over here.
• 01:37 You can also make a new stencil right from this window.
• 01:41 All right, so the reason that you would make up your own stencils beyond
• 01:45 the favorites, maybe you want a stencil that's based on another stencil or
• 01:49 you just want more favorites and that kind of thing.
• 01:52 So watch that again.
• 01:54 I can right-click on any of the stencils that are there and save it.
• 02:00 Once I save it, then I'll have a copy of that stencil that I can modify.
• 02:05 And I could move the shapes back and forth from that stencil.
• 02:09 So once you have those, then I can pick where it says More Shapes.
• 02:15 Now, first of all, I can make new stencils there.
• 02:17 I can open up a stencil that's already out there.
• 02:21 Or I can pick on My Shapes and you'll see the favorites is always going to be there.
• 02:26 Here's the one that we made from that other stencil.
• 02:30 And then, when it says Organize My Shapes,
• 02:34 then it'll show you the folder where the stencils are.
• 02:39 All right, so you can see how here's the favorites.
• 02:43 And then, the file extension is vssx.
• 02:46 And those are going to be your stencils actually.
• 02:48 And then here's the other stencil that we made.
• 02:53 And now we see some great ways to manage your stencils in Microsoft Visio.

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