Dashed or dotted line patterns are converted to a solid line pattern when you embed a Visio 2003 object in another document

Symptoms

In Microsoft Office Visio 2003, when your drawing contains objects that use a dashed or a dotted line pattern, and you copy and paste the objects to a Microsoft Office document or to a document in another program that supports linked and embedded objects, you may find that some of the embedded Visio objects appear with a solid line pattern. Objects that use a line pattern with thick, short lines retain their formatting, whereas objects that use a line pattern with thinner, longer lines do not retain their formatting. The line pattern of these embedded objects are converted to solid lines.

You may also experience these symptoms when you export your drawings to Windows Metafile (.wmf) format.

Cause

Microsoft Visio renders very long lines and very thin lines as solid lines to reduce the size of the Enhanced Metafile (EMF) of the embedded object. By doing so, Visio reduces the increase in file size that occurs when you embed objects in documents in other programs.

Note that the Visio drawing is not changed. Only the EMF image of the drawing that appears in the document is changed when the drawing is not activated. When you double-click the embedded Visio drawing, the line pattern of objects is displayed as expected by using either a dotted or dashed line pattern. When you print the document that contains the embedded Visio object, the EMF image is printed by using solid lines.

Resolution

To resolve this problem, create the
MetafileDashLineAsSolid registry entry in the following registry key and set the
MetafileDashLineAsSolid registry entry to the value that you want:

• Visio 2007

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Visio\Application

• Visio 2003

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Visio\Application

To do so, follow these steps.

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

1. Add the MetafileDashLineAsSolid registry entry to the following registry key:

   • Visio 2007

     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Visio\Application

   • Visio 2003

     HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Visio\Application

   To do so, follow these steps:
   

   1. Click Start, and then click
      Run.

   2. In the Open box, type
      regedit, and then click OK.

   3. Locate, and then click the following registry key:

      • Visio 2007

        HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Visio\Application

      • Visio 2003

        HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Visio\Application

   4. On the Edit menu, point to
      New, and then click DWORD Value.

   5. Type MetafileDashLineAsSolid, and then press ENTER.

2. Set the MetafileDashLineAsSolid registry entry that you created in step 1 to the value that you want.
   
   You can set the MetafileDashLineAsSolid registry entry to any one of the following values, depending on your situation:
   

   • 0: Do not substitute solid lines for dashed or dotted lines.

   • 1: Only substitute solid lines for dashed or dotted lines in extreme situations. For example, substitute solid lines for dashed or dotted lines when the increase in file size that may result is 100 times the size of the original file.

   • 2: Substitute solid lines for dashed or dotted lines when reasonable. This is the default value.

   • 3: Always substitute solid lines for dashed or dotted lines.

   To do so, follow these steps:
   

   1. In the right pane, double-click
      MetafileDashLineAsSolid.

   2. In the Value data box, type the value that you want, and then click OK.

   3. Quit Registry Editor.

Workaround

To work around this problem, increase the thickness of the line pattern of the embedded Visio object after you copy and paste the Visio drawing to the other program. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Open the document that contains the embedded Visio drawing.

2. Double-click the embedded Visio drawing in the document.

3. Right-click the Visio object whose line pattern you want to modify, point to Format, and then click
   Line.

4. In the Weight box, click the line thickness setting that you want, and then click OK.

5. Click an empty area of the document outside the embedded Visio drawing.

6. Save the document.

More Information

For more information about Visio, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/office/visio