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Visio 2000 - Copying drawing to Word or Powerpoint

I use Visio a lot but often have to paste my diagrams into Word or Powerpoint so others can use them. What happens regularly, although inconsistently, (and I've no idea why), is that colours applied to shapes in Visio don't come through in Word or Powerpoint. I either get a monochrome or partly coloured diagram. Whats happening?
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Brian Mulder
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Hi Ange,

Is this happening on your own machine? Is this for all shapes or with special colors don't coming through?

:O)Bruintje
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Ange

ASKER

It's happening on my own machine. An example of a shape it happened today with the RoundRec (rounded rectangle). I've got 7 of these on one diagram, all coloured blue. Curiously, when I pasted into powerpoint, one came through coloured and 6 were white. I've noticed in the past that yellow and green don't paste into powerpoint or word. I'm usually using standard shapes from the visio stencils.
Hi Ange,

Just one little method that might help out:

Instead of using Paste, use Paste Special, and then Enhanced Metafile.

Dave
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ASKER

Tigerman,
Tried your suggestion in both word and powerpoint, but it didn't work. The visio colours didn't come through, I got a completely black and white picture both times.
One last shot - did you try Paste Special as Device Independent Picture?

Dave
Ange,

And of course, there is a rather primitive way around this, but certainly not something you would want to do 'forever':

With your Visio window open, do a screen dump - Alt-PrtScr is the best as it copies only the active window.

In Word, paste in any way you like - Paste Special, Metafile is good because you get good picture quality, and a much smaller file size.

Then crop the 'picture' down to what you want - click on the picture, using the Picture toolbar, crop sides down to desired remains.

Dave
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Dave,
I only get the 'Device Independent Picture' option after taking a screen dump. (And I think I'd rather modifiy the picture after pasting it than use that method :-))

Can I get 'Device Independent Picture' option after a normal copy?
Well, I was sort of on track.  If you do a screen dump, then only Bitmap and DIP are available - if you use DIP, the file size is much less, picture quality is retained, and cropping etc is easily achieved.

If you copy paste special from another office application i.e. XL chart, then Metafile is also available - with similar outcomes - but using Metafile destroys the link with the XL sheet from which you pasted.

I wonder if Visio behaves the same way?

However, I qualify this by saying that I have worked in many different environments - the available options differ from machine to machine [or should I say from one configuration to another].  I have not been able to determine the grounds for when/if both options are available.  Maybe someone else knows those details.

From your comment above it seems that you are able to 'rejuvenate' the Visio paste in Word?? If that is the case, then you could:

Paste in a Visio picture, then

Record a macro to manipulate that picture

Place a button on your toolbar, assign that macro.

Now all you need to do is paste in the picture and hit the button to rejuvenate the picture?

This might be yet another workaround that saves you time.

If you are not familiar with macros and buttons on toolbars, just say so.

Dave

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I'm not familiar with macros & buttons as you describe above. I'm curious to know how you could automate fixing the imported visio picture, when you don't know until you paste it which colours have been lost. I'm curious - tell me more :-)
Ange, I hope I have not gotten your hopes up erroneously.  Basically my thinking was this:

You said that 'fixing' them after pasting is easier and quicker than cropping a screen dump.

The only way that would normally be true is if there was a set pattern to the method of fixing them.


So I went on to think that the steps you perform to fix the Visio pictures were the same for every one.  That is when the power of a macro could be utilised.

From what you now say, my thinking was incorrect, and indeed you need to modify each Visio paste differently - therefore a macro solution will not be of much help at all.

Sorry!!

However, the fact that each time the Visio picture needs different 'fixing' sort of supports the notion that a screen dump and subsequent cropping might still be faster than what you are currently doing.

Dave
any update on this?
Hello Ange@avtech

time to clean up
if not stated otherwise

my recom will be
-PAQ refund
-this will be finalized with no further update (23.08.2002)

PLEASE DO NOT ACCEPT THIS COMMENT AS ANSWER

HAGD:O)Bruintje
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Jgould

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