What's so special about Visio shapes? Where do we begin? Shapes make up any Visio diagram, be it a flow chart, org chart, road map, project calendar, or office layout. Shapes are the meat of the diagram. The essence. You can use shapes to represent objects, actions, and ideas. After you arrange and connect shapes, visual relationships appear.

So, shapes are important. That much is clear. And when shapes don't look right, or you can't get them to do what you want, your whole diagram suffers. This often happens if you aren't aware of the fundamental concepts behind Visio shapes.

This course, the first in a series on shapes, provides those fundamentals. You'll learn how to get shapes, put them on a page, and make them fulfill your Visio vision.

To learn more about this course, read the text in Goals and About this course, or look at the table of contents. Then click Next to start the first lesson.

Before taking this course, you should take the course, Get to know Visio. Or you should be familiar with how to zoom in and out, add shapes to the page, move shapes by dragging the mouse, and connect shapes.