You can organize objects in a Visio drawing into layers and
control various properties of all layer members at once. For example,
you can control whether layer members will print, be visible on the
drawing page, or be selectable. In a town map, for instance, you might
put roads on one layer, sewer lines on a second, water pipes on a
third, and buildings on a fourth. Organized this way, you can lock
certain layers to prevent accidentally moving or selecting that
collection of objects while working with shapes on other layers.
Similarly, you could print a map showing roads and buildings, but not
water pipes.
Layers offer considerable flexibility in managing the parts of a
sophisticated drawing. However, working with layers requires some
planning, because things can get complex: a drawing page can have
multiple layers; each layer has multiple properties; and any shape can
be on zero, one, or multiple layers.
Tip
Every layer belongs to exactly one page. When you create a new
layer, it is added to the current page. If you copy layer members to a
different page, the layer is added to the destination page. (If a layer
of the same name already exists on that page, the copied shapes are
added to the existing layer.)
The Layer
Properties dialog box that you will use in this exercise includes seven
check boxes for setting layer properties. The y are described in the
following paragraphs; default settings for each property are shown for
the Flowchart layer in the graphic following step 7.
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Visible
Controls whether a layer’s shapes are visible on the drawing page.
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Print
Includes or excludes a layer’s members from printing.
Tip
Because the Visible and Print check boxes are separate, you can
create a drawing in which members of a layer are visible in the drawing
but do not print, and vice versa.
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Active
Causes all new
shapes added to the page to be added to the layer. More than one layer
can be active at once, in which case new shapes are added to all active
layers.
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Lock
Prevents you from selecting, moving, or editing any shapes on the layer. In addition, you cannot add shapes to a locked layer.
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Snap and Glue
Allows and disallows snapping or gluing other shapes to the shapes on this layer.
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Color Temporarily
overrides the colors of all objects on a layer; clearing this option
returns layer members to their original colors. When you select the Color property for a layer, the Layer Color and Transparency settings in the lower right of the dialog box are activated.
In this exercise, you’ll create layers and assign shapes to them.
You’ll also change layer properties, which will show you the effects on
the drawing.
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Click once on the photograph of the building at the bottom of the page to select it.
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On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Layers button, and then click Assign to Layer to open the Layer dialog box. When the Layer dialog box opens, notice that the Flowchart layer is already listed because the shapes that are used in the Work Flow Diagram template are pre-assigned to that layer.
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Click the New button.
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In the New Layer
dialog box, type Building Photo and then click OK. The Building Photo layer is added to the Layer dialog box, and the selected shape is added to the new layer.
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Click OK.
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On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Layers
button, and then click the Layer Properties button.
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In the Layer Properties dialog box, select the check box below Lock for the Building Photo
layer.
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Click OK. You have now created a new layer, added a shape to it, and locked the layer.
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Draw a bounding box around the International Division symbol, the EU
flag, and the photograph of the building. Notice that you cannot select
the building because it is on a locked layer.
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On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Layer Properties button, and then click Assign to Layer to open the Layer dialog box. Notice that the Building Photo
layer does not appear in the list, because you cannot assign shapes to a locked layer.
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Click the New button, type International, and then click OK.
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Click OK. The drawing doesn’t look any different at this point, but there is evidence of the new layer in subsequent steps.
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On the Home tab, in the Editing group, click the Layers
button, and then click Layer Properties.
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In the Layer Properties dialog box, clear the check box below Visible, for the International layer, and then click Apply.
Tip
The Apply button
provides a preview of the intended change without closing the Layer
Properties dialog box. If you make a change in the Layer Properties
dialog box and want that change to affect your drawing immediately, it
is not necessary to click Apply—just click OK.
In the graphic on the right, the two shapes on the International
layer are no longer visible. Compare this graphic to the one following
step 13.
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Click OK to close the Layer Properties dialog box.
Note
CLEAN UP Save your changes to the Corporate Diagram drawing, and then close it.
In this exercise, you saw that flowchart shapes are pre-assigned to
a layer. The same thing is true for a number of other Visio templates.
In addition, dynamic connectors are always on a layer, so dropping the
first one onto any page creates a layer called Connector.
Tip
Although they both help you organize sets of shapes, groups and layers
serve different purposes and have different behaviors. For example, you
can select a group and then move it or resize it and the changes affect
all of the shapes in the group; you can’t perform those actions with
the shapes in a layer. On the other hand, you can lock, hide, and
otherwise affect shapes in a layer in ways that you cannot with a
group. Realize also that groups and layers are not mutually
exclusive—you can use both in the same drawing.
