Microsoft Visio Standard 2019 problem

[TimFox]

When I bought a new computer for Windows 10 this year, I purchased separately Visio Standard 2019 to replace the old Visio running on my previous Windows 7 machine.
The new Visio has at least two "templates" for electrical drawings, but there are absolutely no "stencils" containing electrical or electronic components included.
Microsoft's support is its usual helpful stuff, telling me that I need only open the template and search for the shapes in the stencils, but that does not work at all.
Does anyone know the solution for this?  Visio is not a great schematic editor, but it used to work for me when generating small drawings to insert into Word.

[SilverSolder]

What version was your old Visio?  I believe the electrical/electronic stuff is only in "Professional", not "Standard"

[Mr. Scram]

When I bought a new computer for Windows 10 this year, I purchased separately Visio Standard 2019 to replace the old Visio running on my previous Windows 7 machine.
The new Visio has at least two "templates" for electrical drawings, but there are absolutely no "stencils" containing electrical or electronic components included.
Microsoft's support is its usual helpful stuff, telling me that I need only open the template and search for the shapes in the stencils, but that does not work at all.
Does anyone know the solution for this?  Visio is not a great schematic editor, but it used to work for me when generating small drawings to insert into Word.

Does Visio have network access? These new versions tend to call home to retrieve all kinds of things.

[Bud]

Sorry i cant be helpful, Visio used to be a great software until Microsoft bought it. It is so difficult to use now compare to what it was before. May i suggest that for instance any free circuit simulation software could provide a better replacement to Visio schematic drawings.

[SilverSolder]

From Microsoft's web site:

Standard vs Professional editions of Visio
The standard editions are designed to work with basic business diagrams, basic flowcharts, organization charts, and multipurpose drawings.  Templates are included for these kinds of basic drawings.

The professional editions are designed to create more advanced types of drawings, such as engineering schematics, floor plans, advanced process diagrams, logical network layouts, software mapping, and database modeling. Templates are included for basic drawings and advanced drawings. Tools for collaboration and for linking data to your drawings are also included.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/compare-visio-versions-and-features-c659cbc1-34c7-42d8-92e6-80c87fb572a7?ui=en-us

[TimFox]

Thanks for the help.  It looks like I must upgrade the software to the higher level.

[JohnG]

I have been using LibreOffice for over a decade now to do schematics and diagrams for illustrations in publications and patents, probably since it was OpenOffice 3.x or so (been so long that I forget). It will probably read your old Visio files, and I would search your old Visio version for the templates (since you paid for them already)

LibreOffice has continually gotten faster and more stable, and is in many ways (not all) better that MSOffice (that I also use extensively). Since my new work computer came with Win 10 and Office 365, I have seriously considered moving all new work to LibreOffice. There will be some pain points, but the forced updates, pop-ups, and adware (from MS and affiliates) just really suck.

There is one gotcha in LibreOffice Draw. It only does dimensions to two decimal places (WTF?). For me, this is not really a problem since I use it for diagrams and illustrations for work. But, if you want to use it as a poor man's easy 2-D CAD, this limitation will get you sooner or later...

I will be attempting to use LibreOffice Writer for my next technical article. Why not LaTeX, you might ask? Because I have to remain compatible with MSWord and articles are passed back and forth. Writer has excellent Word import/export capability. So excellent, in fact, that I routinely use it to fix broken Word documents by importing them into Writer and exporting them back into Word, at which point they become usable in Word again...

An aside on LaTeX. I wish I could use it for work. It took me a long time to learn, but at least it puts figures in the right place and has consistent, fully functional, and flexible cross-referencing and numbering. I never use this functionality in Word anymore. It is broken beyond belief. I hope Writer is better in this respect.

Thanks for listening, doc...

Cheers,
John