Microsoft® Office Visio® 2003 Inside Out

Managing Linked Shapes

If you never refresh a shape or update a database after creating a link, your shapes will represent a snapshot of the database. However, if you want to keep shapes in sync with the records they’re linked to, Visio makes it easy. When you use the Link To Database command, Visio adds four commands to each shape’s shortcut menu that you can use to manage and update the link, as Figure 24-9 shows. Visio always refers to updating shape properties as refreshing the shape, whereas using the shape’s values to change the database is referred to as updating the database. To refresh or update an individual shape or a database record, right-click a shape, and then choose the command you want.

Figure 24-9. When you link a shape to a database ...