Applies to
Microsoft Office Visio® 2003 Microsoft Visio® 2002

You create Microsoft Office Visio drawings to share information with others. But wanting to share a drawing doesn't necessarily mean that you want others to revise it.

When you distribute the final version of a departmental organization chart or a space plan indicating office assignments, for example, you might want to protect the drawing so that it can't be changed.

How you protect a drawing depends on your goals:

• If you don't want anyone to make changes to the original drawing, you can set the file as read-only, or you can save your drawing as a Web page.
• If you want to allow people to change some parts of a drawing but not others, you can protect specific shapes or drawing attributes against changes.

 Note   In Microsoft Office Visio 2003, you can use the new Track Markup feature to protect your entire drawing, while still allowing your reviewers to annotate the drawing. To learn more about Track Markup, see the About reviewing help topic.

Set a drawing file as read-only

A fast and effective way to discourage people from revising your Visio drawing is to set the drawing file as read-only.

To set a Visio drawing file as read-only

1. In Windows Explorer, right-click the drawing file name, and then click Properties.
2. On the General tab, select the Read-only check box, and then click OK.

Now if others try to make changes to the file, they'll have to save it using a different file name.

 Note   It is important to be aware that someone else could clear the read-only setting on a file in the same way that you set it.

Save a drawing as a Web page

If you want a Visio drawing to be widely accessed but not altered, you can save the drawing as a Web page, so it can be viewed in an Internet browser.

To save a Visio drawing file as a Web page

1. On the File menu, click Save as Web Page.
2. In the Save as dialog box, click Publish.
3. Make any changes you want in the Save as Web Page dialog box, and then click OK.

When you save a drawing as a Web page, several files are created and saved in the location you specify. All the files other than the Web page's main HTML file are stored in a subfolder by default. The name of the subfolder starts with the name of the HTML file for the Web page.

Important  When you publish your Web page to a Web site or post it to a server, be sure to publish the subfolder as well, because it contains all the supporting files that are necessary to properly display your drawing.

Protect shapes and drawing attributes

With some drawings you share, you may want to protect some attributes and not others.

For example, in a drawing with carefully designed text, fill, and line styles, you can protect the styles while still allowing others to add or delete shapes and edit text. Or in a drawing such as a process flowchart, you might want to protect the shapes you have already added so they can't be changed or deleted, but allow others to add more shapes.

 Note   The following methods are all effective ways to discourage certain types of changes to your drawings. Keep in mind, however, that anyone who opens your drawing file in Visio can change these settings.

Ways to protect shapes and attributes

In Visio, you protect shapes and drawing attributes using the Protect Document dialog box and the Protection dialog box. The Protect Document dialog box is where you protect against changes to the drawing attributes, such as styles and preview image. The Protection dialog box is where you protect against changes to specific shapes in your drawing.

To	Do this
Prevent shapes from being selected or deleted	On the View menu, click Drawing Explorer Window. Right-click the name of the drawing you want to protect, and then click Protect Document. Select the Shapes check box, and then click OK. Select the shapes you want to protect. Tip  Press CTRL+A if you want to select all the shapes on the page. On the Format menu, click Protection, and then click From selection and/or From deletion. Click OK.  Note   It doesn't matter which setting you make first; the important thing is that you set these options in both the Protect Document and Protection dialog boxes so the shapes are protected from being selected or deleted.
Prevent shapes from being moved, resized, or rotated	Select the shapes you want to protect. Tip  Press CTRL+A if you want to select all the shapes on the page. On the Format menu, click Protection, and then click: Width and/or Height to prevent a 2-D shape (2-D shape: A shape that has four selection handles that you can use to resize the shape proportionally.) from being resized. Aspect ratio to maintain the current width-height ratio as the shape is resized. X position and/or Y position to prevent the shape from being moved. Begin point and End point to prevent a 1-D shape (1-D shape: Either a straight line you draw using Visio drawing tools or a shape that has a beginning point and ending point and can be glued between two shapes to connect them.) from being resized. Rotation to prevent a shape from being rotated. Click OK.
Prevent all shapes on a layer from being selected, moved, or edited	On the View menu, click Layer Properties. Click in the Lock column to add a check mark and lock the layer.  Note   Users can not add shapes to a locked layer, but they can change the colors of shapes on a locked layer (by setting the color in the Color column of the Layer Properties dialog box).
Prevent styles, backgrounds, or file previews from being changed	On the View menu, click Drawing Explorer Window. Right-click the name of the drawing you want to protect, click Protect Document, and then click: Styles to prevent users from creating and editing styles.  Note   Users can still apply styles. Shapes to prevent users from selecting shapes.  Note   For this setting to take effect, you must also set an option in the Protection dialog box. Select the shapes you want to protect, and then on the Format menu, click Protection. Click From selection and then click OK. Preview to prevent changes to the file's preview image. (The preview image displays the first page of the drawing. It appears above the file name in Windows Explorer when you're using the Thumbnails view.)  Note   If you open a copy of the file, the preview is not protected in the copy. Backgrounds to prevent users from deleting or editing background pages. Click OK.