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If you have ever used a template in a Microsoft Office program to create a document — for example, maybe you've used a Microsoft Word template to create a report or a résumé — you know that a template can help you solve formatting and design problems in advance. And that can make creating a document much easier. The Microsoft Visio® 2000 templates for creating diagrams offer a similar benefit. You can simply open a template and draw.

Let's say, for example, that you need to document a process by creating a flowchart. Right away you have decisions to make. What shapes do you use to indicate steps in the process? How should you orient the flowchart on the drawing page? How do you format the flowchart so it's effective, clear, and attractive, and conveys your process instantly to your colleagues?

If you base a diagram on a Microsoft Visio 2000 template, these types of decisions are already made for you.

Templates save time and effort by providing a ready-made environment in which you can create many diagrams.

So what exactly is a Visio template?

The easiest way to explain templates is to look at a couple of examples. A quick glance at the following examples shows you that templates are diagramming environments consisting of:

• A drawing page with a grid and rulers.
• Stencils (the green areas), which contain predrawn shapes. You can create a diagram by moving these shapes onto the drawing page using a drag-and-drop operation.

All Visio templates have these components in common.

If you look at the examples a little more closely, however, you can see how they differ. Each diagramming environment has been set up in advance to satisfy the requirements of a specific diagram type. All you have to do, whether you want to create a flowchart or an office plan (or any other diagram type that Visio 2000 supports), is to open a template and draw.

Basic Flowchart template example

The Basic Flowchart template includes:

• Three stencils   One contains shapes representing standard flowchart symbols, such as Process and Decision. The other two contain predesigned backgrounds, borders, and titles you can use to quickly liven up and label your flowchart.
• A vertically oriented (portrait) drawing page   because flowcharts are commonly longer than they are wide.
• Rulers marked in real-world dimensions   (for example, inches or centimeters) so you can easily size and align the shapes.

Office Layout template example

The Office Layout template includes:

• One stencil   that contains a variety of space-planning shapes, including wall structures, office furniture, cubicle dividers, a dimension line, and more.
• A horizontally oriented (landscape) drawing page   because space plans are typically bound on the left and have a running title down the right side.
• Rulers marked in feet   indicating that the drawing page represents an area 35 by 45 feet. The page, in other words, has a scale of 1/4 inch = 1 foot.

Note   Visio templates include many more predefined settings, which you can adjust, but we have not described them all here. For example, in a template you can set the way shapes snap into position, how they glue to one another, whether drawing pages have backgrounds, and more.

How do I start a diagram with a Visio template?

Visio provides templates for all the diagram types it supports. You automatically open a template when you first start Visio 2000 and select a diagram type in the Choose Drawing Type dialog box, or when you click the New command on the File menu.

To start a diagram with a template

1. On the Start menu, click Programs, and then click Microsoft Visio.
2. In the Welcome to Microsoft Visio dialog box, click OK.
3. In the Choose Drawing Type dialog box, click a diagram category. Pictures of specific diagram types appear in the window.
4. Click the picture that represents the diagram type you want to create, and then click OK.

Can I create my own customized template?

Yes. And you might want to create a customized template if you:

• Frequently use specialized settings, such as a unique combination of shapes, an unusual page size or scale, a special color palette, or shapes or text with unique formatting.
• Include standard elements in all your diagrams. For example, you can set up a template with your company logo or a title block on a background so it will appear on each page of a diagram.
• Do lots of diagrams of the same type, but with slightly different conventions. For example, you might want one office layout template with a drawing scale of ¼ inch = 1 foot and another with a scale of 1/8 inch = 1 foot. Or you might want one flowchart template for the Accounting Department and another for Human Resources.

To create and save your own template

1. Open an existing diagram or start a new diagram based on the Visio template you want to modify.
2. Open all the stencils that contain the shapes you want to include in your diagram. To do this, on the File menu, click Stencils, and then click Open Stencil.
3. Set page, style, layer and other settings the way you want them. (For information on setting these diagram properties, look in Visio 2000 online Help.)
4. If you want the template to open with a blank drawing page, delete all the content from the page.
5. On the File menu, click Save As, and then do the following:

• For Save As Type, click Template (*.vst).
• For File Name, type a name for your template.
• For Save, click Workspace.
• For Save In, select the folder in which you want to save the template.

  Tip   If you save the template in your Program Files\Microsoft Visio\Solutions folder, it will appear in the Welcome to Microsoft Visio and Choose Drawing Type dialog boxes — just as built-in Visio templates do.

Why should I bother with a template when I can just revise one diagram to create similar diagrams?

If you're going to base many similar diagrams on one original, it's better to base the diagrams on a template than on another diagram. Here's why.

Template Files	Diagram Files
Template files have a .vst extension and are represented by this icon in Windows Explorer:	Diagram files have a .vsd extension and are represented by this icon in Windows Explorer:
When you open a template, you automatically open a copy rather than the original file. This protects the original from revisions you didn't intend. When you start a diagram with a template, you can start with a blank drawing page.	When you open a diagram, you automatically open the original file. By using the Save command rather than the Save As command, you could easily overwrite your original diagram. To start the new diagram, you will have to delete or revise existing content.

Tip   You can quickly convert a diagram file into a template file. If you want to start with a blank page, delete the content from the drawing page. Then, on the File menu, click Save As. In the Save As dialog box, for Save as Type, click Template (*.vst).

More Information

For more information about setting up template properties, search for Drawing page orientation and Grid and rulers in Visio 2000 online Help.