As you work with more detailed Visio diagrams, you will find that you frequently need to zoom in and out and pan—move
left-right and up-down—within the drawing window. Both can be
accomplished using a variety of techniques, some of which rely on your
mouse, some that use a special Pan & Zoom window, and others that
use keyboard shortcuts.
In this exercise, you will learn several techniques to pan and zoom
your diagram, beginning with keyboard shortcuts and ending with the Pan
& Zoom window.
Note
SET UP If the Exploring Visio 2013
drawing is still open from the preceding exercise, continue with this
exercise. Otherwise, create a new drawing: on the File tab, click New,
click Categories, click Maps and Floor Plans, and then double-click the
Office Layout thumbnail. Save the new drawing as Exploring Visio 2013.
-
Click Office Furniture if it is not already the active stencil, and then drag a Round table shape onto the drawing page.
-
Drag a Chair shape onto a different part of the page.
-
Drag a Corner table shape onto yet another part of the page.
-
Drag a Stool and a Square table onto the page. Space the shapes so they occupy at least half of the drawing page.
Your diagram might look something like the following graphic.
-
Hold down the Ctrl+Shift keys (the cursor
will change to a magnifying glass with a plus sign), and then drag a
rectangle around two of the shapes on the drawing page.
Important
You must press Ctrl+Shift before you click for this zoom technique to work.
-
Release the mouse button and the keyboard keys. Visio sets the view
in the drawing window to just the rectangle you outlined with the mouse.
-
Press Ctrl+Shift+W to return to a view of the whole drawing page.
Tip
Ctrl+Shift+W is an incredibly useful keyboard shortcut to remember
because you will frequently zoom in to part of a drawing and then want
to return to full page view. To help remember this shortcut, just remember that W is the first letter of whole page.
Important
In Visio 2007 and earlier, the keyboard shortcut to view the whole
page was Ctrl+W. If you’ve upgraded from one of those versions of the
software, it may take a bit of retraining to get accustomed to using
Ctrl+Shift+W instead. To make matters worse, in Visio 2013, Ctrl+W
closes the active document. (You will receive a warning if the document
has unsaved changes.)
-
Hold down the Ctrl key and rotate the mouse wheel. Visio zooms in or out as you rotate the mouse wheel.
Important
You can only perform this step if your mouse has a wheel.
Tip
Sometimes you may want to zoom in on a specific shape. Visio
provides an option setting that makes this very easy to do. On the File
tab, click Options, and then click Advanced. In the Editing Options
section of the Visio Options dialog box, click Center Selection On
Zoom. Now when you select a shape and press the Ctrl key while rotating
the mouse wheel, Visio automatically zooms in and out on the selected
shape.
-
Press Ctrl+Shift+W to return to a view of the whole drawing page.
-
On the View tab, in the Show group, click the Task Panes button, and then click Pan & Zoom. The Pan & Zoom window opens. You can drag it to position it wherever you’d like.
Tip
You can also open the Pan & Zoom window by clicking the Pan & Zoom button on the right end of the status bar.
-
Click in the Pan & Zoom
window, and then drag the cursor to create a rectangle that surrounds
any two of the shapes. A blue rectangle appears in the Pan & Zoom
window and the drawing window shows only the selected portion of the
page.
-
In the Pan & Zoom
window, click in the interior of the blue rectangle, and then drag into
another part of the miniature drawing page. The drawing window now
shows the newly selected area of the drawing page.
With the Pan & Zoom window open, you can:
-
Continue to move the blue rectangle to reposition what appears in the drawing window.
-
Drag the edges or the corners of the blue rectangle to resize it and change the zoom level.
-
Drag the slider control on the right edge of the Pan & Zoom window to change the zoom level.
For many drawings, the Pan & Zoom window isn’t necessary and may
even be in the way. However, it is extremely helpful when your drawing
page is very large, as it may be if you are working on diagrams such as
engineering drawings, floor plans, or office layouts.
Note
CLEAN UP Close the Pan & Zoom window. Save changes and close the drawing.
Tip
If you have a mouse with a wheel button, you can move the drawing
page up and down in the drawing window by rotating the mouse wheel. You
can reposition the drawing page to the left and right by holding down
the Shift key while rotating the mouse wheel.
You can also move the drawing page using the arrow keys on
your keyboard. Be sure that no shapes are selected before pressing the
arrow keys, however, or you will move the selected shape(s) instead of
moving the page.
