Office 2007 Bible

SmartArt

Thanks to SmartArt, there’s now a whole new level of professional graphics available for use in Word. If this book had color screen shots, you would be dazzled by the kinds of sparkling, shiny, bubbly diagrams you can now make with Word. Best of all, although the SmartArt is seemingly bottomless in variety, the techniques are intuitive and simple to use.

SmartArt replaces Word 2003’s (and earlier) Insert Diagram and Insert Organization Chart feature. The six-item Diagram Gallery has been completely revamped and replaced with SmartArt. Moreover, the plain two-dimensional formatting has been replaced by 3-D formatting that’s so slick it looks like something you’d find in the pages of a major magazine. Let’s just hope that Word users have some excellent data and content to go with all this newfound slickness.

Inserting SmartArt

To insert SmartArt, on the Insert tab, click SmartArt. As shown in Figure 9-49, there are seven categories, plus All, which enables you to peruse the entire gallery. Clicking on a thumbnail preview in the middle panel reveals a larger preview displayed on the right. A description lists the intended use. When you find something that looks appropriate, either double-click it or click on it and then choose OK. Note that SmartArt is inserted like other graphics, such as pictures, and will use your default wrapping style. See “Wrapping” earlier in this chapter.

Figure 9-49. Word 2007 has more than 100 different SmartArt gallery items distributed in seven ...