What is Microsoft Visio?
{flickr|100|campaign}
Microsoft Visio is another stand alone business application that can help create visual presentations that might be able to help people understand data easier. It will remind many people of the graphs process that Excel can do, but it’s a much more powerful program that gives more options for how to show your data. It’s sometimes advertised as being part of the Microsoft Office group, but it’s not included in the Office program so far.
Visio comes with templates of all sorts to help you out if you’re unsure of how to create your own. Some of those templates include diagrams, flowcharts, and database models. But it also allows you to customize your own diagrams once you learn how it all works. You’ll have to get used to its look, though, as it begins by looking like graph paper like what you used when you were taking trigonometry.
One of the good things about Visio is that if you already have your information entered into an Excel spreadsheet or Access database, you don’t have to recreate any of it. Instead, just pull the information in from the file, or files, in either program that you want to use. And then, if you choose to, you can import your graph, image, or chart into PowerPoint for presentation purposes.
Another strong point of using Visio is that, when information changes in any of your spreadsheets or databases, Visio will automatically update your presentation, unlike Excel or Access, where you’ll have to remember to go back to your graph and add something new. Therefore, it eliminates some steps that help you stay efficient. It even has a feature called Refresh Data in the professional version so you don’t have to do a thing in trying to keep things current.
It also has something else that’s pretty unique. If you’re creating charts that have information from different sources, yet that information is tied together in some fashion, Visio will automatically link that information in your diagram to show those relationships, instead of your trying to figure out how to link your images together. It’s a pretty smart program. You can also work with other people on the same diagram, and set it up so that every person has their own color and you can monitor each person’s contribution and alterations of the project.
Microsoft Visio is a powerful program, but it will take some time getting used to. Luckily, they have tutorials on their site that will help guide you through the process
