Inserting “SmartArt”

We use “SmartArt” graphics to get our message across through diagrams. Quickly and easily.

Introduced in “Excel 2007”, “Excel 2010” has a more extensive “Smart Doctor”.

We add a “SmartArt” graphic by clicking on the “SmartArt” button in the “Insert” tab. This opens the “Choose a SmartArt graphic” dialog.

This dialog box is divided into three parts.
The left part (1) shows us the different categories available.
The middle part (2) shows us the different layouts of the selected category.
And the right part (3) shows us a description of the selected layout.

 

Choose a category from the left part, then choose a style in the middle section, and click OK in the right part. I chose an example where I can also add pictures.

 

In the “SmartArt Tools” section, we have two tabs, “Design” and “Format” in which we can always modify the format, layout and style of the SmartArt

To add text to the “SmartArt” graphic, you have two options.

The first possibility is to select the text (1) in the “SmartArt” and type your text. The second option is for you to unfold the text panel (2), and type your text in different lines. Next, click the ‘Enter’ key on your keyboard to add a new blank row. Use the ‘Tab’ and ‘Shift Tab’ to the text below to share titles or subtitles.  To delete text, select that part of the “SmartArt” and click the “Delete” key on your keyboard. Click the photo icon in the box to add a photo (3).

After pictures have been added and the layout of the “SmartArt” has been updated, we have this.

In the next section we can make the “SmartArt” dynamic. Just click the “Convert to form” (1)button in the “Ribbon”. This is actually new in “Excel 2010.”

 

Dynamic “SmartArt”

Now that our “SmartArt” is converted to a form, we can make this dynamic.

In the remaining four text boxes I want to enter the total amount of the sold products. I select the text in the “SmartArt” and I type in the “Formula bar”, the cell that I want to show. In this case = D3. Repeat this for the other products. Changing a cell in column B or column C will change the total in column D and will automatically adjust the text in the SmartArt as the form actually adapts.

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