It was very exciting. Lara Croft, intrepid heroine of the Tomb Raider series of games, stood on the narrow edge of a high precipice while a terrible winged beast swooped at her. As our heroine ducked and dodged the fearsome flapper, she observed that every so often it would come directly at her, rather than at an angle. On these occasions the creature came in from further away, presenting Lara with the perfect opportunity to draw her weapon and blast the monster into a million pixels.

She watched patiently until, after a considerable wait, the creature went to make its direct approach. As it screeched towards her at great speed, Lara went for her gun. With only moments to spare she had a sudden and inexplicable change of mind, and she casually hopped off the edge of the precipice to her death. Game Over.

I'm sure you are all familiar with this situation, where you press the wrong buttons while trying to get the hang of a new game. I persisted in my efforts and pretty soon running, jumping and shooting became second nature and that winged menace didn't stand a chance.

Visio has some rather nifty navigation functions that use a combination of keyboard and mouse, and mastering them will allow you to move around your document with speed and ease. Although these actions may be a little fiddly to begin with, once you get used to them you will be able to move about your Visio pages like a professional.

To zoom in and out incrementally, hold down the Ctrl and Shift keys. This will change the cursor to the familiar magnifying glass icon. Each time you left click the mouse while simultaneously holding down these keys, the view will zoom in. Right clicking the mouse with Ctrl and Shift depressed will zoom out in the same way. If you need to zoom out frequently for a whole page view, Ctrl + W will take you there instantly.

You may prefer to zoom in and out using the scroll wheel on your mouse if it has one. There are a couple of ways to do this, one of which requires a slight alteration to your settings.

If moving your scroll wheel has the effect of moving your view up and down, then you need to change the settings. Go to Tools and select Options, then click on the General tab. Check the Zoom on roll with IntelliMouse box and click OK. Moving the scroll wheel will now take you in and out of your page. Obviously if you want to revert to an up and down action from the scroll wheel, then uncheck the box.

While you have this dialog box open, note the option under the one you just clicked. Centre selection on zoom will take you to the centre of your drawing rather than zooming in on your current view. If you think that this may be a useful function for your purposes, then check the box

There is a quicker way to zoom in and out using the scroll wheel that doesn't require changing your settings, but it does necessitate the use of both hands. If your scroll wheel moves your view up and down, holding down the Ctrl key will switch it to zoom mode (this function works in other Office applications as well).

As you can see there are several ways to navigate around your Visio document. Just like learning a new computer game, familiarising yourself with Visio's navigational controls will greatly enhance your efficiency in its use. Taking up training in the use of Visio will enable you to navigate through all of its menus like an expert.