Here are a few examples of ways you can use multilingual features:

• Flexible date, time, and number style When you enter dates, times, and numbers, Visio can format them in the correct style for your specific locale and language.
• Asian characters With a special program called an Input Method Editor (IME) (IME: A program that enters East Asian text (Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, or Korean) into programs by converting keystrokes into complex East Asian characters. The IME is treated as an alternate type of keyboard layout.) you can type characters for Asian languages.
• Automatic font linking If the assigned font does not include all of the required characters, Visio will automatically link to a second font to find the needed characters. This is particularly useful in multilingual documents that include East Asian and right-to-left text.
• Web pages You can create multilingual Web pages and intranet (intranet: A network within an organization that uses Internet technologies (such as the HTTP or FTP protocol). By using hyperlinks, you can explore objects, documents, pages, and other destinations on the intranet.) content in any of the Office programs.

Microsoft Office is based on the Unicode text encoding standard, which allows Visio to display documents correctly, provided the operating system supports the characters specific to that language.

Many of the TrueType (TrueType font: A font (typeface) that appears on a printed document exactly the way it appears on the screen. TrueType fonts are scalable to any font size. Several of these fonts are installed automatically when you install Windows.) fonts provided with Visio support a wide variety of languages that use different writing systems (such as Greek and Russian) rather than just the languages of Western Europe; a few fonts for Asian languages are provided as well.

Although Microsoft Windows installs many of the files you need, some languages may require that you install additional system support through the Control Panel.

To enter characters particular to some languages, you might also need to install the correct keyboard layout by using the Text Services icon (if it is available) or the Keyboard icon in the Control Panel. For example, install the Greek keyboard so that you can enter characters such as and . To enter ideographic characters for Asian languages, you must use an Input Method Editor (IME) (IME: A program that enters East Asian text (Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, or Korean) into programs by converting keystrokes into complex East Asian characters. The IME is treated as an alternate type of keyboard layout.).

To work with different languages in Visio, you need to enable the appropriate languages for editing by using the Microsoft Office Language Settings tool. (On the Start menu, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Office Tools, and then click Microsoft Office 2003 Language Settings.) Doing so makes additional language-specific options available. For example, if you install the English (U.S.) version of Office and you enable editing for Japanese, commands for formatting Japanese text appear on the Format.

If your organization has purchased Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Multilingual User Interface Pack, you can also change the language of the user interface and Help.