Document ShapeSheet: Where? What? Why?

Note: This post is a lot funnier if you try to read it out loud!

Visio solution developer's will be excited to learn that Visio has a Document ShapeSheet. This ShapeSheet looks similar to a page's ShapeSheet, which in turn is similar to any old shape's ShapeSheet.

While said ShapeSheet has fewer sections than a stock shape's, it does support the User-defined Cells section. This is a great place to store variables and values that apply to all shapes and pages in the document.

There are two ways to access the Document ShapeSheet. Guess which one isn't documented:

• Hold the Shift key, then click: Window > Show ShapeSheet
• View the Drawing Explorer and right-click on the Drawing object at the top.

The syntax for referencing a variable in the Document ShapeSheet is as follows:

User.mvp = TheDoc!User.mvp

Seemingly simple, a Shift + Show ShapeSheet sleight-of-hand will have you setting your solutions ship-shape in seconds!

Chris Roth, Visio MVP