Using Microsoft Visio 2010 [Paperback]

Full Disclosure: I am an acquaintance of the author. Indeed, the book even mentions me on page 323. Take that into account when reading this review.

My background: I have used Visio extensively for 10 years and continue use it *every day* in my work at Microsoft. My knowledge of this application is in the areas of end-user productivity, making visually-compelling diagrams, and driving the application via code (C#, IronPython, VBA, etc.).

Summary:
This book is the only resource either in print or online that I feel clearly communicates to a *normal person* how to use Visio's features. It gives insight that only someone who deeply uses the application can provide.

The fundamental strength of this book is that it will *save you time*. It provides in one place the hard-won knowledge that would otherwise only be available through much time, trial-and-error, and confusion. For example, consider section 6.2. This section describes how to quickly format a table of boxes. Creating a table the standard way would require much dragging and dropping of shapes and tedious formatting and re-typing. Section 6.2 shows hows a technique to perform the task in much less time. In the process of learning this simple task, you'll learn techniques that will make you more productive with all of your other diagrams. This is just one tiny example. The book has many similar sections that describe a variety of situations you'll encounter in your day-to-day use of Visio.

What surprised me: Although though I am considered an "expert" user of Visio in Microsoft, I still found much to learn in the book. The author's knowledge about the application is truly deep. My work in the past few years has naturally been with Visio 2007 and so I found book was useful in discovering and understanding the new features in Visio 2010.

Printed versus Kindle version: I own both but the Kindle version is the one I use on an iPad2 and via Amazon's Kindle Cloud Reader. For me, there's no point bringing the physical book around when I always can access it electronically. Another advantage of the Kindle version is that the screenshots are in color (when viewed through a color-enabled Kindle device), while the printed version has everything in grayscale.

Chris Roth starts his book with a really excellent review of what Visio is and what it can do. He's also clear about the things it doesn't do well, which is very helpful. He uses creative examples throughout the book, showing you some things you'd expect to find (flowcharts, network diagrams) and some things that will surprise you (a circular array of arrows, printing "contact sheets" from Visio pages).

One of my favorite illustrations? Figure 4.7 is probably the best and most creative way I've seen to visualize the difference between dynamic and point-to-point glue.

While I respectfully disagree with Saveen Reddy's review in which he says that this is the only book about Visio you'll need (see obvious reason below!), you will not go wrong buying this book.

Scott Helmers
author of "Visio 2010 Step by Step"

I bought this book for two reasons. First: Chris Roth is the ultimate source for everything Visio. The book alone is worth every penny at twice the price.

The second reason was the videos. I am pressed for time and looking at the video re-enforces the book and vice versa. The Que mechanism to get to the videos is broken and their customer assistance system is broken, flawed or both. I have received only automated replies from them and no assistance. So I will certainly enjoy the book - but I doubt I will bother with Que again on the basis of any promised Internet extras. Pity, because I have bought a lot of Que books over the years. But in future, if I want the videos and they are not on a DVD in the back of the book, I doubt Que will get my dollars again.