You can create new layers to organize custom categories of shapes, and then assign shapes to those layers.

• When you create a new layer (layer: A named category of shapes. You can organize shapes in your drawing by assigning them to layers. You can selectively view, edit, print, or lock shapes on layers.), it is added only to the current page, not to all pages in the file.
• Similarly, when you create a new page, you must define its layers; the new page does not inherit layers from the previous page.
• However, when you copy a shape with a layer assignment from one page to another, whether in the same drawing or between drawings, the layer is added to the new page. If the page already has a layer with the same name, the shape is added to the existing layer.

If a shape does not already have a predefined layer assignment, the shape is automatically assigned to the active layer when you drop it on the page. You can change the active layer to make sure that new shapes are added to the appropriate layer. For example, if you are going to add electrical wiring shapes to a drawing of an office layout, you can make the electrical layer active. All the shapes you add from then on are assigned to the electrical layer. When you begin to add windows, you can designate the wall layer as the active layer.

If shapes need to be assigned to multiple layers, you can designate more than one active layer. Shapes you add to the page are automatically assigned to all of the active layers.

A background is a page that appears behind another page. It can have its own set of layers (layer: A named category of shapes. You can organize shapes in your drawing by assigning them to layers. You can selectively view, edit, print, or lock shapes on layers.). Because a background can be shared by more than one page, but layers cannot, you may want to use layers on background pages. For example:

• In a drawing where the same map is used on multiple pages, you can put the map on a background and assign its parts to different layers, such as the Road layer or Landmark layer. If you want to hide the roads on all the pages, you can then hide the background's Road layer.
• In a drawing with a title block on the background, you can create a Revision History layer, assign the title block to it, and then set that layer as nonprinting.
• If the background includes information you don't want modified, such as your company logo and name, but you want to give the file to a client for modifications, you can assign those shapes to a Corporate layer that you create, lock it, and then pass the file on to the client.

By default, when you assign a group to a layer, all of the group members become members of the new layer and lose their previous layer assignments. You can specify that individual shapes in a group retain their current layer assignments. For example, you might assign a desk to the furniture layer and a computer to the electronics layer, and then group them. If you then assign the group to the den layer, the desk and computer retain their previous layer assignments as well.

If you need to modify the layer assignments of the masters (master: A shape on a stencil that you use repeatedly to create drawings. When you drag a shape from a stencil onto the drawing page, the shape becomes an instance of that master.) on a Microsoft Office Visio stencil, you can create a copy of the Visio master in a new stencil or custom stencil, such as your Favorites stencil. If you have already created a drawing, you can edit the masters on the drawing's document stencil (document stencil: A stencil stored in a drawing file, which contains an inventory of the masters used in all of the drawings in the file. Masters on the document stencil are linked to their instances in the drawings.), and then save it as a new stencil for the next time you want to create a drawing using those masters.

Assign masters on stencils to layers so that when you drag them onto the page, they automatically appear on the correct layer. The Thin road master is assigned to the Road layer . The Hospital and other building masters are assigned to the Landmark layer .

Notes

Because Visio stencils are read-only and contain copyrighted shapes, you should make a copy of the Visio master in your Favorites stencil or another custom stencil to edit the master for your own use.

When you drag the edited master from the stencil onto the drawing page, the instance (instance: (1) A copy of a master, which you create by dragging the master from a stencil to a drawing. (2) A running image of a Windows application.) has the new layer assignment. Any instances you previously dragged on the page have the previous layer assignment.