Creating Visio Diagrams Compatible with Deep View


Visio can be made accessible to a blind person through Deep View, a Visio plugin. Deep View can be customized to access many kinds of Visio diagrams; however, not all diagrams. Deep View can be customized for Visio templates (a user selects a template when starting a new diagram).

The specific diagram we consider is ERD diagrams. I have made a custom ERD Visio template (diagram). The template should make it easier than before to create ERD diagrams. Currently a big hassle creating ERD diagrams is manually setting the custom arrow heads on relationships. My ERD diagram template simplifies. The template includes relationships with the proper arrow heads (see the example below). A user just has to drag the relationship on the diagram and connect ERD entities.

Using the ERD template

  1. Download the zipped Visio ERD template.
  2. Unzip the file to any location, but maybe you want ot save it close to your other Visio work.
  3. Start Visio and start a new ERD diagram that is, start a drawing with the ERD template. Step 1 marked in the next figure: Select the "File" menu, select "New" and "Choose Drawing type". Step 2 marked in the next figure: Visio brought up the "New Drawing" tap on the right side. Select "On my computer" and in the file chooser open the "UNC ERD DIAGRAM.vst" from the downloaded template. There, you are ready to go.
screenshot of Visio. It shows the places to click to create a new ERD diagram.

Rules for creating ERD diagrams

See the ERD rules and sample for details to create a Visio diagram compatible with Deep View. The rules do not restrict the visual appearance of an ERD diagram. The rules are about details of labeling and connecting drawing elements.

Install Deep View plugin for Visio

Dorian Miller, Jan 22, 2006