Using Stencil

A stencil contains a group of shapes that you can drag and drop into your drawing.  Both Visio and Amazing Visio offer many stencils. 

Information on this page describes:

1. How to add a stencil to your drawing in order to use all the shapes inside.

2. How to use an Amazing Visio stencil.

3. How to use a Document Stencil, especially to delete unused shapes to reduce your drawing's file size.

4. How to save a shape in a stencil for later use so that you can permanently apply the brand-new look and feel of Amazing Visio to the shapes of your business.

Adding A Stencil 1. to Your Drawing

You need to add a stencil to your drawing in order to use all the shapes inside.  You have two ways to add a stencil:

a) Adding A Stencil from The Menu:

1. Choose menu File > Stencils > Open Stencil.

2. Do one of the follows:

   1. To open a single stencil: Click the stencil.

   2. To open multiple stencils: Press and hold the Ctrl key.  Click the stencils you want to open one by one.

3. Click Open.

b) Adding A Stencil from The Toolbar:

1. Click the down arrow of the Open Stencil icon on the Standard toolbar.

2. A drop down menu shows different categories:
   
   
3. Move your mouse to a category.  Another drop down menu shows the stencils in the category.  Click your choice.
   

Tip 1: To see additional stencils from the drop down menu, place your mouse pointer on the down arrow at the bottom of the menu.  More stencils will scroll up.

Tip 2:  You can   access the preview from the Amazing Help menu.

2. Using Amazing Visio Stencils

Tips:

1. Create your drawing with an Amazing Visio template whenever possible.  Each Amazing Visio template has a default drawing in addition to a set of stencils.  It's easier to start with the default drawing instead of starting from scratch. 

2. Alternatively, you can create a drawing with your own template / stencils (such as those for your business) then add the Amazing Visio look and feel.  

3. Further, you can add the brand-new look and feel to the shapes of your business then save them for later use. 

amazing_global" - A Special Amazing Visio Stencil to Offer Online Help

Obsolete: This feature is for Amazing Visio version 1.1 only.  

The stencil amazing_global is placed in a special subfolder Global.  The stencil contains Visio macro scripts to create this menu for online help:

In order for this menu to show, your macro needs to be enabled. 

Why no menu is added even after I have gone through the above process?

You may have turned off the direct access to the online help. 

3. Using The Document Stencil

In addition to the stand-alone stencils that you can explicitly add to a drawing, a drawing also has a built-in stencil with the following features:

1. It's automatically created and stays with the drawing.

2. It can only be used by the drawing, not any other drawings.

3. It automatically stores all the shapes the moment they are added to your drawing. 

4. Most importantly, shapes in the stencil will stay even if you have deleted them from the drawing.  This behavior gives you both advantage and disadvantage:

   • The advantage is that you can use these shapes in your drawing later on.

   • The disadvantage is that your drawing's file size will keep growing while you are trying  different shapes.

To Show your document stencil : Choose menu Window > Show Document Stencil.

To use the master shapes in the document stencil: Drag a master and drop it into your drawing.

To delete a master shape from the document stencil: Click your right mouse button on the master then choose Delete.  Click the Cancel button if this message shows indicating that one or more shapes in your drawing are still using this master:

Deleting obsolete masters that are no longer used by your drawing can drastically reduce the file size of your drawing, especially after you tried different shapes.

You can save a shape in your drawing into a stencil for later use.   This is a perfect way to create master shapes of your business with the same look and feel as those of Amazing Visio.

The new shape can be saved in:

1. The document stencil: To be used in the current drawing only.

2. A stand-alone stencil: To be used in any drawings.

Step 1: Opening A Stencil to Keep A Shape

• To show the document stencil: Please refer to the previous section.

• To create a stand-alone stencil: Choose menu File > Stencils > New Stencil.

• To open a stand-alone stencil: Please refer to the first section of this page.  Then you need to make it editable:

  1. Click your right mouse button on the title, such as My Stencil.

  2. Choose * Edit.  The * sign appears to the left of the title indicating that the stencil is now editable.

Step 2: Saving A Shape in The Stencil

1. Click your right mouse button on the shape then choose Copy. 
   

2. Click your right mouse button on the stencil background then choose Paste.
   

3. Click your right mouse button on the newly added master shape then:
   

   1. Choose Master Properties then change it's Name and Prompt.

   2. Choose Edit Master if you need to change the master itself.

   3. Choose Edit Icon to change the icon.

   4. Once you are done, save the stencil to keep the newly added master:

      • For Visio 2000: Click the tiny disk on the stencil title.

      • For later versions: Click your right mouse button on the title then choose Save from the menu.

      • For document stencil: Save the drawing instead.

From now on, you can use the saved shape as a regular shape.  For example, you can add the stand-alone stencil you just created to a new drawing, then drag the shape and drop it into your drawing.

See also: Using Template

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