Visiocomeswithagreattutorial.Gothroughthetutorial.Itdoes.docVIP

Visio comes with a great tutorial. Go through the tutorial. It does not take long ( It should take under an hour) and it will get you started using Visio in no time. To get to the tutorial click on Help then on Microsoft Visio Help and then on Getting Started. We will try to summarize some of the key points and tell you some of the problems one can run into. Visio can be used to draw the following diagrams: Entity-Relationship Flow charts Data flow diagrams Organization charts Gantt charts Pert charts Network Diagrams Office Layouts We will only be drawing E-R diagrams, but feel free to explore the other areas as well. The basic drawing object in a Visio drawing is the shape. Shapes are grouped together in stencils. Stencils are designated by the type of drawing that will work best, for example there is a flowchart stencil for flow diagramming. In addition there are drawing tools that you can use to create basic objects like lines and boxes. There are also styles that allow you to produce special effects to your diagram. Styles include color, fill pattern, and line properties. Each new file is based on a template. A template provides a starting point for your drawing. When you open Visio, you can choose a category. From within the category, choose the template that best meets your needs. A new window will open. Usually the left side of the screen will contain one or more stencils. Each stencil has Master shapes which you can choose to include in your drawing. The right hand side of the window will have the work area. Above these two panes, you will see the familiar Microsoft Toolbars and Menus. You can choose to use the Block Diagram and the Basic Diagram to draw your E-R diagrams, but since there is a special stencil for Database Models, we will look at that first. Start by clicking on File, New, Database, Database Model Diagram. Here is what your screen will look like at this point: Here are the steps use to create the diagram above: Add shapes by either dragg