Draw a shape with the Pencil, Line, Arc, or Freeform tools

Microsoft Office Visio has six drawing tools you can use to draw your own shapes. The six tools are all available on the Drawing toolbar. To use a drawing tool, click the button and then click and drag on the page. After you finish with a tool, click the Pointer tool to stop drawing.

To display the Drawing toolbar, click Drawing Tools on the Standard toolbar.

Draw closed shapes

A closed shape in Visio is a shape that has a continuous outline, such as a rectangle or circle. If you use the Rectangle tool or the Ellipse tool, you get closed shapes automatically. By default, closed shapes are filled with a solid white color. (For information about how to fill a closed shape with a different color or pattern, see Add a gradient fill pattern to a closed shape.)

The following tools draw lines, but you can also use them to draw custom closed shapes:

• Pencil tool

• Line tool

• Arc tool

• Freeform tool

1. To draw the first segment, point to where you want to start the shape, and then drag until the segment is the size you want.

2. To draw the second segment, point to the endpoint of the first segment (the pointer will look like a plus sign), and then drag.

   After you draw the second segment, the shape displays vertices instead of endpoints .

3. To draw additional segments, point to the vertex at the end of the last segment you added, and then drag to draw the next segment.

   Tip: To undo a segment, on the Edit menu, click Undo Add Segment. Segments are deleted in the reverse order in which they were drawn.

   Tip: If an existing segment resizes when you try to draw a new segment, you have accidentally selected the vertex of the resized segment. To fix this, on the Edit menu, click Undo Edit Segment, and then click away from the shape to clear its selection. Point to the vertex and drag to draw the next segment.

4. To close the shape, drag the endpoint of the last segment you create over the vertex at the beginning of the first segment.

   The shape becomes opaque, indicating that it is a closed shape.

5. Click the Pointer tool on the Standard toolbar to return to normal editing.

6. Notes: 

   • To delete a segment from a shape, click the Pencil tool , select the shape, click the vertex you want to delete, and then press DELETE.

   • To add a new segment to a shape, click the Pencil tool , select the shape, point to where you want to add the segment, and hold down the CTRL key and click. A new vertex appears where you clicked the shape, creating a new segment.

   • To reshape a shape by dragging a vertex, click the Pencil tool , select the shape, click the vertex or control point you want to move, and then drag the vertex or control point to a new position.