Shape Alignment and Spacing in Visio 2010 – Part 1

The overall appearance of a diagram gives a huge impact on a presentation. Neatness plays an important role and is a factor that should not be taken for granted. Having a clean and tidy looking diagram not only makes it appear more professional, but also helps in delivering a clear message to your audience. Visio 2010 has provided us with sophisticated alignment and spacing tools to aid us in achieving well-arranged and presentable diagrams.

When aligning in Visio 2010, we come into the concept of the anchor shape. The anchor shape is the one relative to which the alignment is specified. You can identify the anchor shape within the bounding box by the way it is highlighted; its border appears to be thicker than the non-anchor shapes. So when we ask for a particular alignment, the anchor shape stays where it currently is while those that aren’t the anchor shapes move to align.

To align shapes:

1. From the Basic Shapes, drop a number of different shapes on the page.
2. Select more than one shape by drawing a selection box around them.
3. On the Home tab, go to the Arrange group. Click the drop down on the Position button.

4. Select align top / align left / align right / align center to position the shapes accordingly.

Primarily, the shape drawn first defaults to be the anchor shape. This has something to do with the Z order. However, you have the ability to choose the anchor shape by selecting it first using your mouse. To do this, select the first shape that you wish to become the anchor shape, hold the Shift key down and select the next shape.

The order in the vertical direction off of the page is called the Z order. It is related to the order in which they were added to the page. Imagine the shapes coming out of the page towards you; that is the order they were added on the page.

You can change the order by bringing a shape forward, bringing it to front, sending it backward, or sending it to back. Bring forward brings the shape forward one position at a time, while Bring to front brings the shape right in front of all the other shapes. Send backward will move the shape backward one position at a time, while Send to back will send the shape behind everything else.

To change the order of the shapes:

1. Select the shape that you want to change the positon.
2. Go to the Home tab.
3. In the Arrange group on the Ribbon, you will find the Bring Forward and Send Backward options. Click the drop down arrow to find the Bring to front and Send to back options.

Another quick way to change the position is by right clicking on the shape, which brings up the context menu. You will find the bring forward, send backward, bring to front, send to back commands thru this shortcut menu as well.

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA. He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!