You’ve already invested in ITSM tools, chat applications, automation utilities, and more. Fortify these solutions with intelligent communications so you can drive business processes forward.
With xMatters, you'll never miss a beat.
Course Of The Month
2 days, 7 hours left to enrollBecome a Premium Member and unlock a new, free course in leading technologies each month.
Solved
Visio 2013 - Why all the "open" files in my task bar
Posted on 2013-12-30
I just hovered my mouse at the Visio Icon at the bottom of my screen and came up with a bunch of stencils, in addition to my visio drawings. I don't need to see my stencils at the bottom of my screen.
any way to suppress this?
any way to suppress this?
[X]
Welcome to Experts Exchange
Add your voice to the tech community where 5M+ people just like you are talking about what matters.
- Help others & share knowledge
- Earn cash & points
- Learn & ask questions
4-
3
- +1
9 Comments
Hi BT, that seems a bit strange...UNLESS you have stencils open as separate windows, instead of docked in the My Shapes task pane.
Do these stencils show up when you click on the Switch Windows button in the lower-right corner? Or alternatively, can you Ctrl + Tab between these stencils? If so, they are open as separate documents, which generally is not how Visio is intended to work.
If you open them via the More Shapes task pane, they shouldn't show in the Windows task bar.
Do these stencils show up when you click on the Switch Windows button in the lower-right corner? Or alternatively, can you Ctrl + Tab between these stencils? If so, they are open as separate documents, which generally is not how Visio is intended to work.
If you open them via the More Shapes task pane, they shouldn't show in the Windows task bar.
Active 1 day ago
Do you mean you pinned it to the taskbar and now it's showing you the list of recent files opened in Visio?
Active today
Yes. these stencil files show up when I hover my mouse over the VISIO icon at the bottom of my Windows 7 taskbar.
Yikes. Something is wrong here.
I opened a file called DIAGRAM.VSD. (BTW, This is a file I inherited from another employee.) When I open this file I get the diagram AND when I hover my mouse at the bottom of my screen, I see all of these stencils too! (See graphic)
Another oddity: when I close DIAGRAM.VSD, my stencil files all remain open. (See graphic again) I should have a blank screen. Correct?
Yikes. Something is wrong here.
I opened a file called DIAGRAM.VSD. (BTW, This is a file I inherited from another employee.) When I open this file I get the diagram AND when I hover my mouse at the bottom of my screen, I see all of these stencils too! (See graphic)
Another oddity: when I close DIAGRAM.VSD, my stencil files all remain open. (See graphic again) I should have a blank screen. Correct?
My guess is that the stencil is still open in Visio and minimized, possibly out of view somehow. In very old Visio versions, stencils were opened as separate windows, not docked in a task pane. Some of these files have lived through the ages...
Active today
Yikes! I thought I knew it all about shapes and stencils.
Question: What is the relationship of Stencil files to the shapes window (aka shape pane) on the left side of my visio screen? When do I need to have my stencil files open?
Question: What is the relationship of Stencil files to the shapes window (aka shape pane) on the left side of my visio screen? When do I need to have my stencil files open?
The shapes pane displays stencils, which are external files. There is one exception: the stencil named "Document Stencil" (if you have it visible) holds copies of masters that have been dragged into the document you are working on.
In fact, all Visio documents are the same: they have drawing pages and internal stencils. It's just that vss/vssx files display as stencils by default and have an empty page, while documents display pages, and usually have their document stencil hidden.
In fact, all Visio documents are the same: they have drawing pages and internal stencils. It's just that vss/vssx files display as stencils by default and have an empty page, while documents display pages, and usually have their document stencil hidden.
Active today
So there's no way of avoiding the huge array of stencil files appearing at the bottom of my screen when I hover my mouse over the Visio task? (see graphic above ID: 39750348)
--Because I use a lot of different shapes.
--Because I use a lot of different shapes.
Active today
If I may jump in... the file you posted as an example in this question yesterday exhibits the same behavior: lots of spurious stencil windows that can't be docked.
I think Chris is probably right that these are vestiges of a diagram created in an old version of Visio, or are stencils that were opened from File>Open rather than from within the Shapes windows.
To correct the problem, I manually viewed each stencil window and then closed it, until I finally had just the basic drawing with several stencils docked in the Shapes window. Then I saved the diagram and reopened it and none of the extraneous stencil windows opened. If you want those stencils to be available at this point, simply use More Shapes> in the Shapes window to open them as docked stencils.
I think Chris is probably right that these are vestiges of a diagram created in an old version of Visio, or are stencils that were opened from File>Open rather than from within the Shapes windows.
To correct the problem, I manually viewed each stencil window and then closed it, until I finally had just the basic drawing with several stencils docked in the Shapes window. Then I saved the diagram and reopened it and none of the extraneous stencil windows opened. If you want those stencils to be available at this point, simply use More Shapes> in the Shapes window to open them as docked stencils.
Featured Post
The ATEN CV211 connects a laptop directly to any server allowing you instant access to perform data maintenance and local operations, for quick troubleshooting, updating, service and repair.
Question has a verified solution.
If you are experiencing a similar issue, please ask a related question
The ability to add structure to Visio diagrams using containers, lists and callouts is one of my favorite features in Visio 2010. In this article we’ll examine containers. We’ll explore lists (http://www.experts-exchange.com/Microsoft/Applications/M…
Book Review: Using Microsoft Visio 2010 by Chris Roth
Disclaimer: The author of Using Visio 2010 is a friend and fellow Visio MVP.
Whether you’re new to Visio or are upgrading to Visio 2010 from a previous version, you will find a lot to like…
In this tutorial you'll learn about bandwidth monitoring with flows and packet sniffing with our network monitoring solution PRTG Network Monitor (https://www.paessler.com/prtg).
If you're interested in additional methods for monitoring bandwidt…
Monitoring a network: why having a policy is the best policy? Michael Kulchisky, MCSE, MCSA, MCP, VTSP, VSP, CCSP outlines the enormous benefits of having a policy-based approach when monitoring medium and large networks. Software utilized in this v…
Suggested Courses
Course of the Month2 days, 7 hours left to enroll
Earn Certification
Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)
$99.00$89.10
718 members asked questions and received personalized solutions in the past 7 days.
Join the community of 500,000 technology professionals and ask your questions.