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| Warning: You are viewing this page with an unsupported Web browser. This Web site works best with Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 or later, Firefox 1.5, or Netscape Navigator 8.0 or later. Learn more about supported browsers. Using Visio diagrams with other Microsoft Office programs
Applies to: Microsoft Office Visio 2003
In this articleLinking a Visio diagram to an Office document Embedding a Visio diagram in an Office document Embedding an entire Visio diagram IntroductionPerhaps that report you're creating in Microsoft Office Word 2003 or the e-mail message you're composing would be clearer if you included a Microsoft Office Visio 2003 flowchart of the process. Maybe you want to display your organization chart on a Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003 slide. In most organizations, people create and share information in a number of different applications, and Visio is one of many desktop programs. Visio is designed to work with other applications. Diagrams and shapes can be displayed in other documents in a variety of ways, and information from other applications can be displayed in Visio as well. As a part of the Microsoft Office System, Visio provides many of the same tools as Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and PowerPoint 2003 for sharing information. For example, you can use object linking and embedding (OLE) to place information from one application in another. You can also save Visio diagrams in alternative file formats, including Web-compatible graphics formats like GIF and JPEG, and e-mail Visio drawings right from your Visio toolbar. Just as you can use Visio data in different ways in other applications, you can pull all kinds of graphic or text information into Visio drawings. This article provides the ins and outs of getting data in and out of Visio. Working with OLEOLE provides the easiest way to place Visio shapes or diagrams into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and other applications that support the Windows Clipboard and OLE. When you use OLE to place Visio shapes or diagrams, you maintain a connection with Visio, so you can edit the shapes or diagrams using Visio tools and features. OLE is just a broad name for the technology that allows you to use information from one application in another. All the Office System applications support OLE, which means that you can insert and edit Office documents within Visio, or add Visio diagrams to Office documents, as Figure 1 shows. Although OLE has been around for a while, you might not be familiar with the term. If you've ever copied and pasted information from one program into another, or used the Paste Special command in an Office application, you've probably taken advantage of OLE.  Figure 1. With OLE, you can embellish an ordinary Word memo by linking or embedding a Visio diagram in the document.
OLE boils down to linking and embedding, both of which support editing in place. Which technique should you use? It depends on the number of documents that will include the Visio information and how frequently you expect to revise the information.
One benefit of linking instead of embedding is that the document in which you use the Visio data stores only a reference to the Visio data. This keeps your document file size smaller and more manageable. However, applications keep track of links using the file name and location of each linked file — the link will be broken if you change the file name of the original diagram or move the files. The main advantage of embedding is that you can maintain separate versions of a Visio diagram for different purposes. An embedded shape or diagram isn't linked to the original Visio drawing file, so you can make changes there that don't affect any of the embedded copies. In addition, an embedded diagram is available even if the original file is not. For example, you can print a Word document that contains an embedded Visio diagram from any computer, whether or not Visio is installed and the original Visio diagram file is on the computer. Of course, because the entire Visio diagram must be embedded in the document, the document's file size can increase dramatically. You can also embed, link, and import objects created in other programs into Visio. The basic principles are the same. Tip Visio does many things well, but it probably wouldn't be your first choice for word processing. For text-based documents, you'll save yourself some headaches if you create the diagrams in Visio, the words in another program, and then bring them all together using OLE. You can embed Visio diagrams in your word processor document or embed the text from your document in Visio. Linking a Visio diagram to an Office documentWhen you link a Visio diagram to a document in an Office System application, the document file stores a reference to the original diagram. If you edit the diagram — either in Visio or within the document — the diagram changes in both places. And if you've linked the diagram to more than one document, each of those documents will be updated. Because each of these documents is linked to a single Visio diagram, your document stays smaller, which means you can work in the document more quickly and it takes up less space on your hard disk. However, any time you need to use the Office document that contains the link, the original Visio diagram must be available. A linked file is tracked and updated based on its file name and location. Let's say you link a Visio diagram to a PowerPoint slide. The next time you open that PowerPoint presentation, it searches for the Visio drawing file referenced by the link and displays the latest version. If you change the name of the Visio diagram file, or move it to a different folder after you link it, the link will be broken and the diagram won't appear in PowerPoint. If you link a diagram to an Office document, it's simplest to store the Visio diagram in the same folder as the Office document; if you need to move the document to another computer, make sure you move both the document and the linked diagram file. For example, if you created a presentation on your laptop computer, and then want to run the presentation from a different computer, copy both the presentation file and the linked Visio drawing file to the new computer. Before you can link a Visio diagram, you must save the file. Note To display a linked Visio diagram in a document, your computer must have the applications used to create both the document and the Visio diagram. This limitation makes documents with links less portable. To send a document that contains links to another person, you must include all the files referenced by the links, and the recipient must also have all the applications used to create the documents and files. However, it doesn't matter which version of Visio the recipient has — both Visio 2003 Standard and Visio 2003 Professional can open diagrams created in the other version. Do not use object linking if you need to print the document from a computer that doesn't have Visio installed; embed the diagram instead. To link to a Visio diagram from another application, follow these steps:
Editing a linked diagramAfter you link a Visio diagram to another document, you can continue to work on the diagram. The document containing the link will reflect your changes. To edit a linked Visio diagram, open the diagram in Visio, make any changes you want, and then save the file with the same file name in the same folder. You can also edit the linked diagram from within the document it's linked to. To do this, double-click the diagram in the document. Essentially, you've just used a shortcut to start Visio and open the drawing; otherwise, you work in Visio exactly as you would if you had opened the application separately. Updating a linked diagramIn most OLE client applications, linked objects are updated automatically each time you open the document. When you open the document, the application searches for each file referenced in a link and updates the appearance of the document to match the current version of the linked diagram. If the application can't find the file, it will prompt you to locate it. Even when a linked object is set to update automatically, you can manually update the link at any time to reflect changes you've made in the diagram. If you expect to edit your original Visio diagram frequently and won't always have access to it from the linked document, you might want to set the object to manual linking, rather than to automatic. That way, you won't receive prompts to locate the file every time you open the document. If you do set a link for manual updating, make sure you actually update the link before you print or publish it so that changes you've made to the diagram are reflected in the document. To update a link manually in most OLE-compatible applications, follow these steps:
Tip You can manually update a link at any time whether you've chosen the automatic or manual update method. Embedding a Visio diagram in an Office documentYou can embed Visio shapes or diagrams into Microsoft Office 2003 documents. Embedding has some convenient advantages:
The primary disadvantage of embedding is file size. Because all the Visio shape data is stored in the document, its file size can increase dramatically when you embed a Visio image. You might not be aware that Visio shapes are automatically embedded in an Office document every time you copy from Visio and paste in Office. You can also drag shapes from Visio to a document in Microsoft Office Word 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2003, or other OLE-compliant applications. Just make sure both applications are open and visible and that neither window is maximized, so you can see them both at once. Hold down the CTRL key while you drag the shape you want from the Visio drawing into the other document. Note Dragging shapes from a Visio diagram into a document in another application moves the shapes to the other document and deletes them from the Visio diagram. To drag a copy of the shape, press the CTRL key as you drag. The pointer displays a plus sign to indicate that you are copying the shape, not moving it. If you accidentally move the object and delete it from the Visio diagram, choose Edit, Undo from the Visio menu to recover it. If you want to ensure that you don't disturb your original Visio diagram, a safer option for embedding shapes and diagrams is to copy and paste them. First select the shapes you want to embed. Then copy the shapes to the Clipboard using your favorite method of copying: press CTRL+C, choose Edit, Copy, or click the Copy button on the Standard toolbar. Next, switch to the document in which you want to embed the shapes (for example, press ALT+TAB to switch between open programs in Windows), and press CTRL+V or choose Edit, Paste. The shapes appear as part of your document. In an Office document or in any other application that supports OLE, the shapes are embedded, so you can edit them from within the document. Tip If you paste shapes into an application that doesn't support OLE, the shapes are pasted as a graphic that you can't edit. Embedding an entire Visio diagramYou can embed an entire Visio diagram in another document if you use the Copy Drawing command, as Figure 2 shows. If you have a multiple-page Visio diagram, you can copy only one page at a time. You can then embed that page and repeat for each page in the diagram.  Figure 2. To embed an entire diagram, use the Copy Drawing command to copy each page, and then paste in the desired document.
Tip Don't worry about losing your layer settings in embedded drawings. In some earlier versions of Visio, when you embedded a Visio drawing that included layers, your layer settings were ignored in the embedded copy. For the most part, this limitation only affected hidden layers, which would unexpectedly appear in the embedded diagram. Fortunately, Microsoft Visio 2002 and Visio 2003 don't include this restriction. Hidden layers remain hidden, even if you embed your diagram. To embed an entire page of a Visio diagram, follow these steps:
TroubleshootingYou receive an error when you edit a linked or embedded diagram The error message you receive might vary, depending on the application you're using and the problem it encounters. Most likely, though, either the application cannot find the original Visio diagram (in the case of a linked diagram) or your computer can't start Visio. Verify the following:
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on the Standard toolbar or choose Edit, Copy Drawing.
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