In the previous two posts on customizing Data Graphics, I covered general customization (using a text callout example) and customizing icon sets.

If you are creating icon sets, often you'll want to use existing images rather than trying to figure out how to redraw them. There are two main tips for creating icon sets with images:

• You need to make the icon set item a group and then place the image in a subshape of the group.
• To keep file sizes small, put all of the images in a single image strip, then use the "Foreign Image Info" section of the image master to mask out the images appropritely based on the values in msvCalloutIconNumber (these will need to refer to the parent shape).

Mark Nelson has created two examples using the Office icons and some number images:

See the attached Visio file for the example. The two masters to look at are called "Images" and "Numbers".

The full article on customizing Data Graphics will include a step by step process on doing this, and I'll link to that when it is up.