Can't search for online shapes in Visio 2016

Thanks for the information, John. That's an interesting state of affairs since online search for shapes was one of Visio's most useful features.

Do you or Microsoft have a suggested alternative? I tried searching the internet for shapes yesterday and it didn't go very well. Microsoft's suggestion to search the Download Center for Visio didn't work since it brought up a link to buy the application but not any shapes. I found some shapes via Google search. That worked OK but I had to juggle a ton of stencil documents. figure the old search feature would have been much easier.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/troubleshoot/visio/cannot-search-shapes-feature

John... Visio MVP

Unfortunately, there are a lot of people at Microsoft who have heard of Visio and have created shape collections that are no more than clipart and not necessarily good clipart. There are a few companies that provide collections of Visio shapes, but they are commercial.

Doing an internet search I did find a number of shapes, including shape collections from Visio look alikes. So, there are shapes out there.

There are various type of Visio shapes. Do you want a dimensional accurate shape that can be used on a floor plan for spacing or a representive shape to include in a flow diagram where you do not care the dimensions of a laster cutter, just that it is in the right sequence ofthe flow.

 I have created many shapes and they are relatively easy to do and it is relatively easy to convert any image into a Visio shape. It is basically encapsulating the iamge into a Visio shape. If you are not scaling the diagram, then the fact that it may be a bmp image is not a problem.

John Marshall... Visio MVP

Thanks, John. I really appreciate the help.

The shapes I couldn't find were for industrial manufacturing equipment - laser cutters and waterjets.

I was also looking for Microsoft-related technology shapes. I found some on Microsoft's website that were good enough but weren't quite at the quality I was hoping for. Is there a set of Microsoft technology shapes you like?

At one point I did have a web page of 3rd party shapes, but because I respected the authors Intellectual Proerty, I only posted links. Over time those websites changed or were removed and the links were broken. So I have dropped that page.

So, what shapes are you looking for? I may be able to suggest a source.  For large collections of shapes, there are companies that have collections available commercially.

John... Visio MVP