Copy & Paste Bug
Robert Rümmler
I'm having problems with a copy & paste bug in Visio 2000
and 2002. When pasting within Visio or to MS Word, the
pasted diagrams are completely messed up. Whereas the
shapes are still visible, the placement of the shapes is
entirely different to the copied diagram. I've been
battling with this problem in Visio 2002 SR-1 as well as
Visio 2002.
Any information on how to deal with this problem would be
greatly appreciated.
Robert Rümmler
________________________
Research Associate
Centre for Telecommunications Research
Department of Electronic Engineering
King's College London
University of London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
England
=========================
Tel: +44 (0)20 - 7848 2889
Fax: +44 (0)20 - 7848 2664
Email: robert....@kcl.ac.uk
Cindy [MS]
I'm sorry to hear you are having problems. In order to help you figure out
the problem, I will have to ask a lot of questions. I hope that is okay.
The first thing I can think of is perhaps you don't have a default printer
set up for Windows?
Is it possible that you have some shapes off of the drawing page that you
don't know about? Sometimes if there are shapes off in the blue space and
you choose to copy drawing, that might skew the results. Can you tell me
what size page you have in your original Visio drawing and the size of the
target page in Word and/or Visio? Are they similar?
Are you using a lot connectors in your drawings?
Do you experience this problem with multiple diagrams or just one?
Can you take the drawing to another machine with Visio and try to copy and
paste? Can you replicate the problem on another machine?
Hopefully the answer to these questions will help me figure out where the
problem lies.
Regards,
Cindy, Microsoft Visio Program Manager
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"Robert Rümmler" <robert....@kcl.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:2aca01c242cc$53b1fb90$9ae62ecf@tkmsftngxa02...
Cindy [MS]
This is a strange problem. I can easily reproduce the problem and I can
actually fix it. I am just not yet sure why it is a problem and why what I
do fixes it. It appears that some of the shapes in your simple flowchart are
slightly off in alignment. For whatever reason that is throwing off the copy
and paste. You can fix this by selecting all of the shapes that are up and
down on the page. In this case, this will be the 6 shapes (5 process and 1
decision). You do not need to select the connectors. From the Shape menu,
choose Align Shapes. In the Left/Right section choose the middle button to
align the shapes vertically. Do the same thing with the decision shape and
the position shape that is off to the right of the main flowchart only align
them using the Up/Down section. You should be able to copy and paste without
problem.
If you are making new drawings, you can avoid this by dragging out
guidelines and gluing shapes to them. To do so, put your cursor in either
ruler above or to the left of the drawing page. You'll see your cursor turn
into a double headed arrow. Hold down the mouse button and drag it into your
drawing page. You'll see blue dashed lines appear (they will be green while
they are selected). These lines do not print, but they will help you align
shapes. By default, shapes will automatically glue to the guidelines and you
can move a row or column of shapes by moving the guideline.
That said, I don't know why the shapes in your drawings need to be perfectly
aligned in order to copy and paste properly. That shouldn't have to be a
requirement. I'll see if I can figure out what is going on and let you know.
Thanks so much for your patience.
Regards,
Cindy, Microsoft Visio Program Manager
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
"Robert Rümmler" <robert....@kcl.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:20f901c243a4$4380b080$2ae2...@phx.gbl...
Hi Cindy,
I am more than happy to answer your questions as
accurately as I can. I hope you don't mind that I've taken
our correspondence offline for the time being. I'll go
through your queries one by one:
* I've got a default printer set up for Windows (HP
Laserjet 4050).
* All the drawing shapes that I've attempted to copy &
paste are on the page (and not within the blue space).
* The page size in Visio (as well as in MS Word) that I've
been using is A4.
* The diagrams that I'm having problems with do tend to
have a lot of connectors.
* I've been having the same problem with multiple diagrams
in different files and worksheets, both when
copying/pasting between Visio sheets and between Visio and
Word.
* I've been able to replicate the same problem on three
machines that I was able to test on. The equivalent copy &
paste operation resulted in the same behaviour on all
machines.
In order to show you the results of the problem I've been
having, I've attached a Visio diagram with 3 worksheets.
The first worksheet shows the original drawing, the second
worksheet shows the diagram resulting from of a copy &
paste from the first worksheet, whereas the third
worksheet shows the diagram resulting from a copy & paste
special (enhanced meta file) operation. I think that you
should be able to replicate the problem without great
difficulty.
I'd like to add that most of the time I've been able to
find a workaround by either first copy-dragging the
diagram within the same worksheet and then copying/pasting
or by repeating the copy & paste operation several times
until the pasted diagram re-produced the original diagram.
I hope that I've been able to help you in pinpointing the
exact nature of the problem. Please don't hesitate to get
back to me with any further queries.
Kind regards,
Robert Rümmler
________________________
Research Associate
Centre for Telecommunications Research
Department of Electronic Engineering
King's College London
University of London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
England
=========================
Tel: +44 (0)20 - 7848 2889
Fax: +44 (0)20 - 7848 2664
Email: robert....@kcl.ac.uk
>.
>
Cindy [MS]
I have it. Some of the shapes have a custom formula in them in the PinX
cell. I'm not sure how much you know about the inner working of Visio, but
each shape's behavior is "programmed" into a spreadsheet like interface
called the ShapeSheet. The PinX cell locates the X location on the page--in
other words, where the shape sits from left to right on the piece of paper.
Someone has changed those formulas and when you copy and paste the shapes,
Visio re-evaluates where those shapes are sitting on the page. I'm not sure
why those formulas were entered into the shape, but moving the shapes on the
page force the formula to get over-written. That is why dragging the shapes
on the same page fixes the problem--same with aligning the shapes as I
mention in my previous message.
If you are the one who made the changes to the shapes and need that formula
for a specific reason, let me know. Perhaps we can come up with a better
option that doesn't cause the drawing to disintegrate during a copy and
paste operation. Also, please let me know if you need a more thorough
explanation and I'll do what I can. Thanks again for your patience and I
hope this helps.
Regards,
Cindy
"Robert Rümmler" <robert....@kcl.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:20f901c243a4$4380b080$2ae2...@phx.gbl...
Hi Cindy,
Kind regards,
Robert Rümmler
________________________
Research Associate
Centre for Telecommunications Research
Department of Electronic Engineering
King's College London
University of London
Strand
London WC2R 2LS
England
=========================
Tel: +44 (0)20 - 7848 2889
Fax: +44 (0)20 - 7848 2664
Email: robert....@kcl.ac.uk
>.
>
