When you find stencils online and download them, Visio stores them in the My Shapes folder. That’s where you can find them when you’re ready to use them in your diagrams.
Where can I find stencils in Visio?
More When you find stencils online and download them, Visio stores them in the My Shapes folder. That’s where you can find them when you’re ready to use them in your diagrams.
This of course begs the inquiry “Are Visio stencils copyrighted?”
The Visio shapes on stencils supplied by Microsoft Corporation are copyrighted. You may copy and reorganize them for your own use, modify them for your own use, and distribute drawings that contain them. You may not sell or distribute original or modified Visio shapes. On the File menu, point to Shapes, and then click Open Stencil.
Shapes in Visio stencils are often referred to as master shapes. When you drag a master shape onto a drawing page, you create a copy (or “instance”) of the master. The master itself remains on the stencil so that you can use it repeatedly to create new copies of the master on drawing pages.
What is the my shapes folder in Visio?
This means that Visio uses the My Shapes folder as the default when you use the Open Stencil dialog box or Save As dialog box to open or save custom stencils. If you delete the My Shapes folder, Visio creates another one the next time that Visio is started.
How do I save a stencil I download?
When you download a stencil, and the notification bar asks if you want to open or save the file, click the arrow next to Save and click Save As.
This of course begs the question “What is the default working folder for custom stencils?”
Note: The default working folder for custom stencils is always the My Shapes folder. This means that Visio uses the My Shapes folder as the default when you use the Open Stencil dialog box or Save As dialog box to open or save custom stencils.