Working with Microsoft Visio Objects

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This content is no longer actively maintained. It is provided as is, for anyone who may still be using these technologies, with no warranties or claims of accuracy with regard to the most recent product version or service release.

Microsoft® Visio® products provide a sophisticated toolset for information technology professionals who design, model, and manage complex enterprise-level systems.

Automation is a means by which a program written in Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA), or other computer languages that support automation, can incorporate the functionality of the Visio applications simply by using its objects. VBA is incorporated in Visio, so you are not required use a separate development environment to write your programs.

The way objects in an application are related to each other, along with each object's properties (data), methods (behavior), and events, is called the program's object model. In the Visio object model, most objects correspond to items you can see and select in the Visio user interface. For example, a Shape object represents a shape in a drawing.

In automation, the application that provides the objects (such as the Visio application) makes the objects accessible to other applications, and provides the properties and methods that control them.

The application that uses the objects (such as your program) creates instances of the objects and sets their properties or invokes their methods to make the objects serve the application.

In This Section

  • Understanding the Visio Object Model
    The Microsoft® Visio® object model represents the objects, properties, methods, and events that the Visio engine exposes through automation.
  • Understanding the Visio Application Object
    The Application object is a property of the Microsoft® Visio® global objects, so you can access any of the Application object's properties by referencing directly the Application property of the Visio global object.
  • Developing Office Applications Using VBA
    Create Microsoft® Office XP Developer applications that can range from writing a simple Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) procedure to creating a sophisticated financial analysis and reporting application
  • Working with Office Applications
    Take advantage of different objects, collections of objects, properties, methods, and events to build your application.
  • Working with Microsoft Access Objects
    Use Form, Report, and DataAccessPage objects and the controls they contain to format and display data and make it possible to add or edit data in a database.
  • Working with Microsoft Excel Objects
    Use Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) to work with Microsoft® Excel objects, from either within Excel itself or another Microsoft® Office XP Developer application to gain access to every part of Excel.
  • Working with Microsoft FrontPage Objects
    Create, deploy, modify, and manage Web sites using Microsoft® FrontPage®.
  • Working with Microsoft Outlook Objects
    Create custom Microsoft® Outlook® objects and manipulate those objects from within Outlook or from another application using VBA code from within Outlook or another Microsoft Office XP Developer application by using automation.
  • Working with Microsoft PowerPoint Objects
    Automate Microsoft® PowerPoint® by using the Application object, from which you can open an existing Presentation object or create a new presentation.
  • Working with Microsoft Project Objects
    With the Microsoft® Project object model, you can build powerful, custom applications. Microsoft® Visual Basic® Applications Edition programming system extends the Visual Basic programming style to access Project project-planning software–supplied objects. In addition, the Visual Basic programming style is extended to access a Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet, Microsoft® Word word processing, the Microsoft® Access database management system, and the Microsoft® PowerPoint® presentation graphics program.
  • Working with Microsoft Publisher Objects
    When you write Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Application (VBA) code that calls into Microsoft® Publisher, you treat Publisher as a collection of Visual Basic objects, where each object has methods and properties that either return Publisher's state or cause Publisher to do something.
  • Working with Microsoft Word Objects
    Use Microsoft® Visual Basic® for Applications (VBA) to work with the Microsoft® Word Document object, Application object, and Documents collection.