When you click a title block, the entire group is selected then, you can click an individual shape to subselect it.Now you have moved the title block in your new background and you have saved the document as a template. The ready-made title block shapes are actually groups. To open this stencil in Visio Professional, click the drop-down list arrow for the Open Stencil button on the Standard toolbar, and then choose Visio Extras, Title Blocks.

Let's start by looking at a diagram created from the basic shapes template. In addition, as you'll see in a moment, you can control where the text appears in relation to the shape. To add text to most shapes, you simply select the shape and start typing. The text you see on a shape can reflect the contents of a data field stored in the shape or elsewhere, but in many diagrams, the display text is just text that's been typed onto the shape.

If double-click doesn't work on a particular shape, you can probably revert to either F2 or just typing. Once again, F2 or escape to leave edit mode however, that won't work on every shape, because shape designers can use the double-click action for other purposes. The final method of editing shape text is to double-click a shape, which I'll do on the triangle. I'm not going to make this change, but if you do, you can then use Shift + Plus + Enter to start a new line whenever you're entering text. If you click File > Options, on the Advanced page, there's a setting that says Pressing ENTER commits shape text. If you happen to have Visio 2013 or later and would really like the enter key to leave edit mode, there's a setting for that.

On the home tab, in the tools group, is the text block tool. What do you do if you want text on a shape but don't want it in the default location? The answer is, there's a tool for that. Let's shift now to another common text related problem. If I select the shape and start typing, Visio tells me that I can't. You can't tell by looking at it but that's the case for the circle on the screen.

In this case, there's white text on a white background, which we'll need to fix in a moment, but first, while we're still editing the text block, realize that I can change the size, so it's not just a matter of moving it. In this particular case, it looks exactly the same, but if I now grab the edge and drag it, you'll notice I'm moving the text off the shape. Now that I've activated that tool and select a shape, what I've actually selected is the text block for the shape, not the shape itself.

So let's do that, and we can see that, going back to the text block tool, my text is now black. Now that the shape is still selected but we're no longer in text edit mode, I can continue to make changes to the shape itself, including changing the text color. Type Control + 1 or click Pointer Tool up on the toolbar. When you're finished with it, you have to manually change back to the pointer tool. Notice that the text block tool is persistent.

I'm going to select this router and type edge router. We're zoomed in to a portion of a network diagram. Let's take a moment to look at a set of shapes in which the default location of the text blocks is not in the center of the shape. If I move the shape, that text goes with it. But the important thing is, it's still part of the shape.

In this particular case, the shape designer's locked it to vertical motion. If I drag that yellow square, I can move the text to whatever location I'd like. Notice the yellow square on top of the text. I could use the text block tool if I want to move the location of the text, but some shape designers, like those who created these network shapes, have made the job even easier. If I move the router, the text goes with it.

If I move the router or I move the text box, they are completely not related to each other. Looks good, except for the fact that that text block is a completely independent shape. This is a one-time use tool, so I'm going to draw this text box next to this firewall and I will type firewall to label the shape. There's a text tool in the tools group on the home tab, or if you're using Visio 2013 or 2016, you can right-click anywhere on the page, and on the mini-toolbar is a text tool. Finally, if none of the techniques in this video provide what you want, you can always add a text box to the pane. If what I really want to do is move that text off to the side, well, I can always revert to using the text block tool and move it wherever I'd like.

If you do that but don't like where the text is located, you can always use the text box tool to reposition it wherever you'd like. There may be times when you need to add a text box to the page for example, to add a title to the page, but it's best to remember that the best practice for labeling shapes in a Visio diagram is to add text to the shape itself. Editing and maintaining a diagram with lots of independent text boxes can be a real nightmare.

Edit Visio Title Block