Visio Play Editor Overview

What is it?

The Visio Play Editor is a tool that lives inside Microsoft Visio and allows coaches to create play diagrams significantly faster than drawing from scratch. It provides a library-based system where pre-built formations, player shapes, and route or blocking concepts can be added to a drawing with a single click — eliminating the need to manually place and position individual elements each time.

Why does it matter?

The tool is built around three core concepts: drawings (complete formations or alignments), shapes (individual player-level objects like routes or blocks), and walkthroughs (a workflow that combines both). Everything in the Play Editor is customizable — what you build in the libraries reflects your own program's terminology, formations, and concepts.

How does it work?

Opening the Play Editor

To open the Play Editor, click the Play Editor button in the Visio ribbon. This opens the PQD Play Editor panel on the left side of the Visio screen, where all three tabs are accessible.

The three tabs: Drawings, Shapes, and Walkthroughs

Once the panel is open, three tabs organize everything you can do in the Play Editor:

• Drawings — Complete formations, defensive fronts, coverages, or all-22 looks. A drawing gives you a full starting point — all players placed and ready to work from.
• Shapes — Individual objects that attach to a player or group — route concepts, blocking schemes, defender paths, coverage assignments. Shapes add the detail on top of a drawing.
• Walkthroughs — A combined workflow that steps through adding a formation, a defense, and individual blocks or routes in sequence to build a complete finished play.

How Drawings work

A drawing is a pre-built Visio file that represents a complete starting point — for example, a specific offensive formation, a defensive front, or an all-22 look. Each drawing lives in a drawing library, and you can have multiple libraries organized by purpose.

Examples of how coaches organize their drawing libraries:

• Scout cards — Opponent formations and defensive looks for weekly game prep
• Pass drawings — Pass-specific offensive formations and alignments
• Run drawings — Run-game formations and backfield alignments
• Defensive Playbook — Full playbook formation library for installation and teaching

Within each library, drawings are organized into folders. For example, a scout card library might have an all-22 folder, a formations folder, and a defenses folder — each containing the relevant drawing files.

Adding a drawing to the page

To add a drawing to your play canvas, you can either single-click to select it and then click the Add button, or double-click the drawing to drop it directly onto the page.

Editing a Drawing Library

To edit or update a drawing library, right-click the library name in the panel and select Edit Library. This opens the underlying Visio file for that library. Inside the file, each page tab at the bottom of the canvas represents a separate drawing. The page tab name is what becomes the drawing's label in the panel. The drawing file contains a field used as a background layer, with individual player objects on top of it.

How Shapes work

Shapes are individual objects that you drop onto a player or group of players in your drawing. Where a drawing gives you the formation, shapes add the play detail — the routes each receiver runs, the blocking scheme for the offensive line, the path a defender takes in coverage.

Shapes live in a separate shapes library, which works exactly the same way as the drawings library: one Visio file can contain multiple shapes, and you can have multiple shapes libraries organized by category — for example, one library for routes, one for blocking schemes, one for defensive paths.

Adding a Shape to a player

To add a shape, select the player on the canvas you want to assign a route or concept to, then double-click the shape from the Shapes tab. The shape will automatically attach to that player. To add shapes to multiple players, select the next player and double-click the next shape — each attaches individually.

⭐ The most important rule: shapes must start from center
When building shapes for your library, every shape line must be drawn starting from the center and middle of the player object. This is the reference point PQD uses to attach the shape correctly. If the shape is not drawn from center, it will not attach in the right position when placed on the canvas.

Adjusting shapes after placing them

After a shape has been placed on a player, you can manipulate and adjust it — moving it, resizing it, or modifying the route path. You can also flip shapes horizontally, vertically, or both using the flip controls at the bottom of the Shapes panel. This is useful when a receiver lines up on the opposite side of the field from where the route was originally drawn.

How Walkthroughs work

The Walkthroughs tab combines the drawings and shapes workflow into a single guided process. Rather than switching between tabs manually, Walkthroughs steps you through adding a formation, adding a defense, and then adding the individual blocks or routes — in sequence — to build a complete finished drawing. This is especially useful for run game diagrams where multiple elements need to be layered in a specific order.

Auto naming plays

The Play Editor includes an auto naming feature that generates play names automatically based on the drawings and shapes you drop onto the page — eliminating typing and reducing naming inconsistencies across your library.

To enable it, go to Settings in the PQD Play Editor panel and turn on Auto Name Plays. You can also choose the naming format — the format determines the order in which the drawings dropped onto the page are combined into the play name.

⭐ Why auto naming matters
Auto naming does two things: it eliminates typing mistakes that can cause plays to be filed incorrectly, and it enforces naming consistency across everyone on your staff who is drawing plays. If every coach uses the same library and auto naming is on, every play comes out named the same way — regardless of who drew it.

Exporting drawings

One of the most significant capabilities of the Play Editor is the ability to export multiple Visio pages at once as individual files and send them directly to your library. To export, click the Export button and select your destination folder.

The key export settings to know:

• File per page — Set page export to a file for each page, saved as a Visio file. Each page in the document exports as its own separate file.
• Use page name for file name — Check this box. The page name at the bottom of the Visio canvas becomes the file name for that exported drawing. This is how the Play Editor links your naming convention to your file structure.
• Prefix page number (optional) — For scout cards, enabling a prefix adds a double-digit number to the front of each file name — Card 1 is Doubles, Card 2 is Trips, Card 3 is Trey — creating an organized, numbered card sequence automatically.

💡 Tip — Name your pages before exporting
Because the page name becomes the file name, make sure every page tab at the bottom of your Visio document is named correctly before you export. The page name is your final file name — get it right in Visio and the export takes care of the rest.

Managing multiple libraries

Both the drawings system and the shapes system support multiple libraries. You are not limited to a single set of formations or a single set of routes — you can build as many libraries as your role or your staff's responsibilities require.

A practical example: a coordinator might maintain separate libraries for scout card drawings, pass game drawings, run game drawings, and playbook drawings. Within the shapes system, they might have one library for route concepts, one for blocking schemes, and one for defensive paths. All are accessible from within the same Play Editor panel and can be switched between using the library dropdown.

📋 One file, many drawings
A single Visio file can contain multiple drawings or multiple shapes. You do not need a separate file for every formation or every route — group related content into one file and let the pages within it serve as the individual library entries.