The behavior of built-in line patterns is different from the behavior of custom line patterns in Visio 2003 and in Visio 2002 (887184)

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Office Visio 2003 and in Microsoft Visio 2002, you notice that the behavior of built-in line patterns is different from the behavior of custom line patterns. Additionally, you experience the following symptoms:

When you increase or decrease the length of a line that uses a built-in line pattern, the granularity of the line pattern does not change. The line pattern is truncated when the end of the line is reached.
When you increase or decrease the length of a line that uses a custom line pattern, the granularity of the line pattern changes depending on the length of the line. The whole pattern fits into the length of the line. The line pattern is not truncated.

CAUSE

This behavior occurs because line patterns in Visio 2003 and in Visio 2002 are processed as follows:

The instances of built-in line patterns are truncated to fit the line. The width of the components in the line pattern is always the same, regardless of the length of the line.
The instances of custom line patterns are scaled to fit the line. The width of the components in the line pattern changes, depending on the length of the line.

GDI+ routines are used to create lines that use built-in line types, whereas Microsoft Visio code is used to process custom line types. By design, Visio 2003 and Visio 2002 work this way.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information about line patterns in Visio 2003, see Visio 2003 Help. To do this, click Microsoft Office Visio Help on the Help menu, type line patterns in the Search for box, and then click Start searching.

For more information about line patterns in Visio 2002, see Visio 2002 Help. To do this, click Microsoft Visio Help on the Help menu, type line patterns in the What would you like to do? box on the Answer Wizard tab, and then click Search.