{"id":51593,"date":"2010-01-11T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-11T00:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.technet.microsoft.com\/heyscriptingguy\/2010\/01\/11\/hey-scripting-guy-is-it-possible-to-automate-microsoft-visio\/"},"modified":"2010-01-11T00:01:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-11T00:01:00","slug":"hey-scripting-guy-is-it-possible-to-automate-microsoft-visio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/hey-scripting-guy-is-it-possible-to-automate-microsoft-visio\/","title":{"rendered":"Hey, Scripting Guy! Is It Possible to Automate Microsoft Visio?"},"content":{"rendered":"

 \"Bookmark<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Hey,<\/font><\/p>\n

Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a question. You guys seem to have a lot of material about automating Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Excel. You have even written some stuff about automating Microsoft Office Outlook, but I have never seen anything about automating Microsoft Office Visio. I am going to assume that it can be done, because one of the great things about Microsoft Office is its customization and automation model. I have searched the Internet and have not come up with anything. Is it even possible to automate Microsoft Visio? Is it possible? Is it too hard? What’s the deal?<\/p>\n

— LF<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Hey, Hello LF, <\/p>\n

Microsoft Scripting Guy Ed Wilson here. I love Charlotte, North Carolina, in January. It is a cool 50 degrees Fahrenheit outside (10 degrees Celsius) and sunny. If I played golf, it would be perfect weather for a nice 18 holes, but I do not play golf—I write scripts. Golf can be an expensive hobby; writing a script is free. The way I play golf, writing scripts is much more enjoyable. Therefore, 50 degrees Fahrenheit and sunny is a perfect day to play around and write some cool Windows PowerShell scripts. First, I munch ANZAC Biscuits<\/font><\/a> and listen to AC\/DC. <\/p>\n

One thing you will discover when automating Microsoft Visio is that the object model is similar to the object model for Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel. Though you cannot follow a Microsoft Word script and use it as a pattern to automate Microsoft Visio, if you are familiar with automating Microsoft Word the process involved with Microsoft Visio will not be completely new to you. <\/p>\n

When automating Microsoft Visio, the first thing you need to do is to create an instance of the application<\/b> object. Because it is a COM object, you use the New-Object<\/b> cmdlet with the –comobject<\/b> parameter and specify the program ID of Visio.Application<\/b>. The application<\/b> object is documented on MSDN<\/font><\/a> and provides access to the Visio application. Store the returned application<\/b> object in the $application<\/b> variable: <\/p>\n

$application = New-Object -ComObject Visio.Application<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

You query the documents property<\/font><\/a> of the application<\/b> object to return a documents collection object<\/font><\/a>. The documents object includes a Document<\/b> object for each open document in a Microsoft Office Visio instance. It contains a number of methods for working with documents. Store the documents<\/b> object in the $documents<\/b> variable:<\/p>\n

$documents = $application.Documents<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Next use the add method<\/font><\/a> from the documents<\/b> object to create a new document. Pass the name of the template to the add<\/b> method to allow you to base the new drawing on an existing Visio template. If you want to create a new drawing that is not based upon an existing Visio template, you use empty quotation marks:<\/p>\n

$document = $documents.Add(“”)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Keep in mind that most of the time, you will want to base your new drawing on one of the existing Visio templates because they set a number of defaults that are useful and will save you a lot of effort. The names of the templates are pretty much the same as the ones seen in the New<\/b> file menu seen here.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

To add a new Visio drawing based upon the Basic Diagram template, use the add<\/b> method. Store the returned document object<\/font><\/a> in the $document<\/b> variable: <\/p>\n

$document = $documents.Add(“Basic Diagram.vst”)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

After you have a document<\/b> object, use the pages<\/b> property from the ActiveDocument<\/b> property to return the document<\/b> object and the pages property<\/font><\/a> from the document<\/b> object to return a pages collection object<\/font><\/a>. Store t\nhe pages<\/b> object in the $pages<\/b> variable: <\/p>\n

$pages = $application.ActiveDocument.Pages<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

The default<\/b> property from the pages<\/b> object is the item property<\/font><\/a>. Use the item<\/b> property to return the first page in the page<\/b> collection. Store the returned page object<\/font><\/a> in the $page<\/b> variable:<\/p>\n

$page = $pages.Item(1)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Because the Basic Diagram template that we used to create the new drawing includes the Basic Shapes stencil as seen in the following image, you might assume that the Basic Shapes stencil would automatically be available. However, this is not the case. You must add any shape sheet you wish to use before accessing the shapes it contains. <\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

To add a shape sheet, use the add<\/b> method from the documents<\/b> collection, and specify the name of the shape sheet with the .vss<\/b> extension. Store the returned document<\/b> object in a variable named $stencil<\/b> for ease of identification:<\/p>\n

$stencil = $application.Documents.Add(“Basic Shapes.vss”)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

After you have added the shape sheet to the documents collection, use the masters property<\/font><\/a> from the document<\/b> object to return the masters collection object<\/font><\/a> for the documents stencil. Use the item<\/b> property to retrieve a specific item from the stencil. <\/p>\n

Store the returned master object<\/font><\/a> in a variable named $item<\/b>. When retrieving a master object from a stencil, the name you will use follows the names you see in the stencil, as seen in the following image.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/font><\/a><\/p>\n

To add a square, use the code seen here. <\/p>\n

$item = $stencil.Masters.Item(“Square”)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

It is time to place the symbol on the page. To do this use the drop method<\/font><\/a> from the page<\/b> object. You need to specify the master object stored in the $item<\/b> variable, as well as an x\/y coordinate. Store the returned shape object<\/font><\/a> in the $shape<\/b> variable:<\/p>\n

$shape = $page.Drop($item, 1.0, 10.6) <\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

It is time to add some text to the shape. To do this, use the text property<\/font><\/a> of the shape<\/b> object: <\/p>\n

$shape.Text = “This is some text.”<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

To save the drawing, use the saveas method<\/font><\/a> from the document<\/b> object and specify the path and name of the drawing, as seen here: <\/p>\n

$document.SaveAs(“C:fsoMyDrawing.vsd”)<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

Close Visio by using the quit<\/b> method from the application<\/b> object, as shown here: <\/p>\n

$application.Quit()<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span><\/p>\n

After the script has run, the Microsoft Visio drawing seen in the following image is saved in the location you specified.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

LF, that is all there is to using Windows PowerShell to create a Visio drawing. The script for today can also be found at the Script Repository<\/a>.  <\/span>Microsoft Visio Week will continue tomorrow. <\/p>\n

If you want to know exactly what we will be looking at tomorrow, follow us on Twitter<\/font><\/a> or Facebook<\/font><\/a>. If you have any questions, send e-mail to us at scripter@microsoft.com<\/font><\/a> or post your questions on the Official Scripting Guys Forum<\/font><\/a>. See you tomorrow. Until then, peace.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ed Wilson and Craig Liebendorfer, Scripting Guys<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a question. You guys seem to have a lot of material about automating Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Excel. You have even written some stuff about automating Microsoft Office Outlook, but I have never seen anything about automating Microsoft Office Visio. I am going to assume that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":595,"featured_media":87096,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[53,49,3,45],"class_list":["post-51593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scripting","tag-microsoft-visio","tag-office","tag-scripting-guy","tag-windows-powershell"],"acf":[],"blog_post_summary":"

    Hey, Scripting Guy! I have a question. You guys seem to have a lot of material about automating Microsoft Office Word and Microsoft Office Excel. You have even written some stuff about automating Microsoft Office Outlook, but I have never seen anything about automating Microsoft Office Visio. I am going to assume that […]<\/p>\n","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/595"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/scripting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}