Working with ShapeSheet

A ShapeSheet is a built-in spreadsheet of your Visio drawing.  It keeps internal data about your drawing.  Most of the data can be manipulated from different menu items and pop up windows, therefore you don't need to deal with the ShapeSheet directly in most of the cases.

There are special situations where the data you need to change are only accessible via the ShapeSheet.  The shape protection tag is an example:

Usually, you can add or remove protection to/from a shape like this.  In some cases, however, you may still get this editing message (such as when trying to change the color of a shape) after you have turned off the shape protection:

To see the message:

1. Add the stencil Clip Art in category Visio Extra.

2. Add the shape Laptop Computer to your drawing.

3. Change the fill color of the shape.  The above message shows.

To remove the protection:

1. Choose menu Window > Show ShapeSheet.

2. Look for Protection section. 

3. If you don't see the section: Click your right mouse button on the ShapeSheet background. Choose View Sections then Protection. Click OK.

4. Change the value of Lock Format to 0.  Close the ShapeSheet.   Now you can change the fill color.