Visio 2007 Is Annoying Me – Cannot Delete Shapes!

I downloaded a template from Microsoft that I wanted to use for a Visio I needed to create.  Seems simple enough.  The nice part about Microsoft’s templates?  They have some built in programming like applying themes already set.  For the record, I’m going to use the terms "object" and "shape" interchangably".

 

The annoying part about Microsoft’s templates?  They protect some objects that you just cannot delete…even when removing all "protection" from said object.  I’ve found the fix so skip down to the bottom if you want that.  Here goes….

 

Take a simple shape in one of their templates:

When I click the delete key, I get:

No big deal right?  Just remove the "protection" on the object….just one problem…there is no protection:

So what’s a guy to do?  Well, after a couple of hours of scouring Google and Microsoft, I came across a kind soul who provided the answer.  The answer was found here; the contributor was meintsi (TechnicalUser).

So now I had to find this mysterious "shapesheet" feature I’ve never used before.  It can be found by going to Windows–>Show ShapeSheet:

Once that opens, there’s a good bit of information "under the hood" that can be configured.  The one we want to change is called "Lock Group".  We want to set the value from 1 to 0 which effectively disables the protection:

Once I performed this task I was able to delete all objects that were unknowingly protected!  I hope this helps anyone who was/is getting frustrated with Microsoft templates or any other Visio document that won’t allow deletion.

Take Care>>>Dustin