MSFT Visio: How to make “documentation” field show in in a UML diagram?

Question

I'm using Visio to make a UML diagram. When I double click on an object, it gives me a textbox labelled "Documentation". How can I make it so this text is displayed on the object itself in the diagram - so viewers don't have to double click it to see the text?

Answer 1

You've not specified a version of Visio, but here's what I've got for Visio 2003.

Once you've created an object on the page, right-click and select Shape Display Options..., ensure Properties is ticked and return to the page.

This doesn't seem to work for some object types (because Properties cannot be enabled) and I personally don't like the way it is displayed, but hopefully that might help.

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The alternative is to just add Note objects to your diagram instead, but then the text is stored in the diagram itself and not the UML model.