The Microsoft Visio program lets you paste stencils and diagrams into applications such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Most users will simply insert the whole "Visio object," such as a stencil or diagram, into their file. While this is the most obvious thing to do, inserting the whole Visio object can create unforeseen problems.

Visio files include a great deal of embedded application data. This data is necessary to be able to double-click the drawing in Word or PowerPoint and have it open as a Visio object for editing, but the overhead to make this happen can add many megabytes to the size of your file, making file sharing difficult. A Word document, for example, can grow from 200 KB to over 10 MB, making it difficult to share among colleagues and frustrating for partners or customers to download. Very large documents are even more problematic.

Unless you really need Visio's editing capability, you can insert just the drawing by doing a Paste Special instead of the usual Paste.

In Visio, copy the stencil normally, using Edit > Copy or Ctrl-C to copy the whole drawing.

At the desired location in the destination document, choose Edit > Paste Special. In the Paste Special dialog box, select Picture (Windows Metafile).

Click OK. The stencil pastes into your document as a normal picture. To position it, choose Format > Picture, click the Layout tab and select In line with text. This is usually the most reliable layout option.

Do not use the usual Edit > Paste or Ctrl-V to paste Visio stencils. Always use Paste Special.

If the file size of your document is larger than it should be, use Step 1 below to see if the Visio drawings are the reason and, if so, adjust the size.

With the stencil selected in Word or PowerPoint, choose Edit. At the bottom of the Edit menu, you will see either Edit Object or Edit Picture:

• Edit Object, if the drawing was simply pasted. It is a fully loaded Visio object and taking up much more file space than it needs. Go to Step 2.
• Edit Picture, indicates the stencil was inserted properly, as a picture. It is not the source of the large file size.

If the drawing is an object, cut it (Ctrl-X), and then repaste it following the steps outlined above.

You can easily click through the document to check each picture by using Word's Go To feature: Where you want to start searching, press Ctrl-G. In the Go To What list, select Graphic and click Next. You go to the next graphic. Click it to select and then check as in Step 1. If needed, repaste as in Step 2. Click Next and continue these steps for other graphics.