Tips For Using Visio

Here are a few tips for using the templates that have been provided for designing algorithms and PDTs.

1. Start by double-clicking on the template file. This will create a new drawing for you, and it will use the appropriate stencil to give you the set of basic shapes.
2. Set the zoom size of the drawing to 100%.
3. Drag and drop shapes from the stencil onto your main drawing.
4. Work to the grid - that is, keep things in multiples of 5mm. All of the boxes available in the stencil have been set so they keep to 5mm boundaries in their height and width.
5. Vision has a number of settings that "help" the positioning of boxes, lines and their connection points. You can control these settings by going to the Tools menu and selecting the Snap&Glue menu item. The sliders at the bottom control the Snap and Glue settings, and we suggest you reset the Grid and Points setting to be stronger than the default - try a setting of 20 for those sliders.
6. Don't change the size of the font used in the boxes. It may look small on the screen (especially if you haven't reset the zoom), but the size is fine for printing.
7. To edit the text in a box, click on the box (so the so-called handles for the box (around its perimeter) become visible, then press the F2 function key. This puts you into the text-editing mode for that box.
8. Start by dragging a vertical line onto your drawing page. This should snap to a grid line (if you've followed the instructions above). You can then position the Start box onto the top of the vertical.