Customer Reviews

Visio 2003 Bible

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I just had my eyes opened to all that Visio can do by reviewing the book Visio 2003 Bible by Bonnie Biafore (Wiley).

Chapter list: Getting Started with Visio; Getting Started with Drawings; Working with Visio Files; Working with Shapes; Connecting Shapes; Working with Text; Formatting Visio Elements; Inserting, Linking, and Embedding Objects; Importing, Exporting, and Publishing Visio Data to the Web; Linking Shapes with Data; Collaborating with Others; Building Block Diagrams; Constructing Charts and Graphs; Working with Organization Charts; Working with Flowcharts; Documenting Business Processes; Scheduling Projects with Visio; Documenting Brainstorming Sessions; Modeling and Documenting Databases; Building UML Models; Building Software Development Diagrams; Mapping Web Sites; Creating Network Diagrams; Working with Scaled Drawings; Creating Scaled Plan Drawings; Laying Out Architectural and Engineering Plans; Integrating CAD and Visio; Working with Engineering Drawings; Creating and Customizing Templates; Creating and Customizing Stencils; Creating and Customizing Shapes; Customizing Shapes Using ShapeSheets; Formatting with Styles; Customizing Toolbars and Menus; Automating Visio; Installing Visio 2003; Visio 2003 Help Resources; Additional Resources for Templates and Stencils; Keyboard Shortcuts; Template and Stencil Reference; Index

As you can tell, there's not much left to cover after Bonnie gets done. :-)

As an IT professional, I've used Visio for the basics. Someone wants a flowchart, I can fake my way through a decent looking diagram. And that was pretty much all I thought Visio could do... basic drawings. But going through this book was an eye-opener. I didn't know that you could output Visio output for the web. I didn't know you could hook shapes up to data sources. And I *really* didn't know that Visio could produce a site map of a web site! Guess what I'll be trying at work tomorrow...

The author does a great job of covering the material at a level that everyone can understand. Due to the comprehensive nature of the book, I think that all levels of users can get something from the book, too. Those who are new to Visio will get a good foundation in the basics. Those (like me) who haven't explored past the basics will discover all sorts of new toys. And experts may find a feature or two that they didn't know about.

Definitely a keeper that will end up on my bookshelf at work, and one that I'll have to guard against greedy fingers...

I am a programmer myself who didn't paid too much attention to MS Visio previous to my encounter with this book. Like the previous poster, I can "wink" my way through Visio for a fairly decent drawings, part of the reason for this is because I have worked with programs like Corel, Photoshop, video editing programs, Dream Weaver, Flash, etc, where I had to worked with various drawing tools, layers, rulers, zoom etc. Then suddenly I was offered a nice job with a well known IT company, and the position requires me to use MS Visio extensively.

I bought the MS Visio inside out first, but quickly found the book boring and uninspiring. So I returned the inside out book and bought this one ... Boy, am I glad I did.

I read a few pages and was completely sold. First, the author's writing style makes studying this dry subject very exciting. Secondly, She used terms I can relate as a programmer, for example, she refers to shapes in stencils as masters (hint: Classes), and a copied of the shape as instances (hint: inherited objects), behaviors as methods etc. For example, the MS Inside Out book note that shapes are powerful and smart (you would think to yourself: how smart?). This book relates shapes to classes, and we programmers know how powerful classes can be: they are the foundation to object oriented programming designs. Here's an example of how powerful classes can be: we programmers know that in designing any serious projects, we should never work with base classes, rather we should create our own classes by inherit from the base classes we need (thus creating a layer on top of the bass class while preserving essentially the same functionality). This approach is fairly common in FoxPro programming but equally applies to the .NET platform as well. The power comes in when we have to make changes to the base objects ... any changes make to them will filter down the chain to all the child objects. Thus, say your boss wants you to flowchart the whole business process using MS Visio and he wants all the shapes colored gray, then next month, he wants you to change all your shapes to light blue. Well, if you created your objects using the base classes, you are stuck; however, if you created another layer on top of your base layer in your design, it would only take you minutes to deliver the revised project to your boss. This is power.

So far so good, I will add to this review after I dig into the text some more.

As is usual with books purporting to enlighten you on the use of software, this book covers a great many subjects. The problem is, there is not enough depth on any of the subjects to help much if you are already a user of the program. If you have a detailed question, the likelihood is you will not find the exact subject addressed or if it is, the coverage is perfunctory. For example, the material on Gantt charts is less detailed than you will find in the help menu, so why bother with the book? If you have advanced far enough on your own to ask this type of question, chances are you won't find the answer either place.
On the other hand, if you are the type who is reluctant to just dive into a program and start figuring out how to use it on your own and want a guide, the sheer volume of material in this book will impede rather than help.

The book is about 700 pages. It is a great reference. It tells you what you can do with Visio 2003 but it is lacking in telling you how to use the features. This book needs to be coupled with a book of applications. There is not much on Shape Sheets which is the heart of Visio shapes. You still have to go to the WEB and search for info from the MS Visio SDK (Software Developer Kit) for information about built-in Visio Functions that you can use in your Shape Sheet to make your shapes more powerful. For example, It would have been nice if the book had info about the DOCMD(1312) function which when entered into the Shape Sheet causes the shape's Custom Properties Dialog box to pop up on double click. This book needs a whole lot more of that type of practical information, but all-in-all it is still a good reference manual. I recomend buying some other CD training to get a grip on the applications and then use this book as reference.

An excellent book that shows you how to get the most out of Visio. Although the explanations of various principles behind the application are brief, it provides enough detail to help you understand the basic concept and allows you to effectively use the information in the book.

This book is well organized and turned out to be more comprehensive than I expected. It is clearly written, and should meet the needs of most Visio users.

As an application training specialist, I'm always looking for books I can recommend to my students, and this is definitely one of them. This book offers a great one-stop resource for all things Visio!