Insert a “SmartArt” graphic

“SmartArt” objects are new since “PowerPoint” 2007 and replaced the “Charts” in previous versions. In “PowerPoint” 2010, no fewer than 80 new styles of “Smart Art” objects have been added.  A “SmartArt” graphic can be used if you wish to convey your ideas, in a visual way .

To add “SmartArt”, click the “SmartArt” button under the “Insert” tab in the “Ribbon”.

In the dialog that appears, we find 7 different categories on the left:
“List” – “Process” – “Cycle” – “Hierarchy” – “Relationship” – “Matrix” -” Pyramid” – “Picture”.

 

In each category, we have different types.

Each type has different views, which we see as thumbnails in the middle of the dialog.

We select a “thumbnail” in the middle, then this, plus a brief description is shown magnified on the right side of the dialog.

We can insert a “SmartArt” in different ways.

One way is to click the “SmartArt” icon in the “Placeholder box”.

 

A second way is through the “Insert” tab in the “Ribbon” and clicking on the “SmartArt” button.

 

In both cases, this opens the “Choose a SmartArt graphic” dialog.

Select the “SmartArt” you wish to insert into your slide and click the OK button.

To do this a little faster, double-click in the “SmartArt” dialog.

 

This adds the “SmartArt” to our slides and places two contextual tabs in our “Ribbon” :
“Design” and “Format”

 

Convert text to “SmartArt”

A third way to insert “SmartArt” is, to convert existing text to “SmartArt”.

To do this, first select the text that you want to make a “SmartArt” object with.

Right-click the object and in the drop-down menu, choose the “Convert to SmartArt” option.

In the drop-down menu that appears, choose a style, or choose the “More SmartArt Graphics” option. If you choose this last option, it opens the “Choose a SmartArt graphic” dialog.

 

Whatever you do, this places the selected text from our slide into a “SmartArt” object.

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