Chapter 22: Enhancing Your Work with Pictures and Drawings

Exporting Graphic Objects

If you create a graphic in Excel using Shapes, SmartArt, or WordArt, you may want to save the graphic as a separate file for use in another program. Unfortunately, Excel doesn’t provide a direct way to export a graphic, but here’s a trick you can use. Make sure that your graphic appears the way you want it and then follow these steps:

1.Save your workbook.

2.Choose File Save As to save your workbook as a Web Page. In the Save As dialog box, select Web Page (*.htm; *.html) from the Save as Type drop-down list.

3.Close the workbook.

4.Use Windows Explorer to locate the HTML file you saved in Step 2. You’ll notice that Excel also created a companion directory for the HTML file. If you save the file as myart.htm, the directory will be named myart_files.

5.Open the directory, and you’ll find *.png graphic files — one for each graphic object in your workbook. The *.png files have a transparent background.

FIGURE 22.6

A Shape, before and after editing its points.

Using SmartArt

Excel’s Shapes are certainly impressive, but the SmartArt feature is downright amazing. Using SmartArt, you can insert a wide variety of highly customizable diagrams into a worksheet, and you can change the overall look of the diagram with a few mouse clicks. This feature was introduced in Office 2007, and is probably more useful for PowerPoint users. But many Excel users will be able to make good use of SmartArt.

Inserting SmartArt

To insert SmartArt into a worksheet, choose Insert SmartArt. Excel displays the dialog box shown in Figure 22.7. The diagrams are arranged in categories along the left. When you find one

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that looks appropriate, click it for a larger view in the panel on the right, which also provides some usage tips. Then click OK to insert the graphic.

Note

Don’t be concerned about the number of elements contained in the SmartArt graphics. You can customize the SmartArt to display the number of elements you need. n

FIGURE 22.7

Inserting a SmartArt graphic.

Figure 22.8 shows a SmartArt diagram after I customized it and added text. When you insert or select a SmartArt diagram, Excel displays its SmartArt Tools contextual tab, which provides many customization options.

FIGURE 22.8

This SmartArt shows a simple organizational chart.

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Customizing SmartArt

Figure 22.9 shows a SmartArt graphic (named Vertical Equation, from the Process category) immediately after I inserted it into a worksheet. The Type Your Text Here window makes it very easy to enter text into the elements of the image. If you prefer, you can click one of the [Text] areas in the image and type the text directly.

FIGURE 22.9

This SmartArt needs to be customized.

Figure 22.10 shows the SmartArt after I added some text.

This particular diagram depicts two items combining into a third item. Suppose that your boss sees this graphic and tells you that you need a third item: Advanced Technology. To add an element to the SmartArt graphic, just select an item and choose SmartArt Tools Design Create Graphic Add Shape. Or you can just select an item and press Enter. Figure 22.11 shows the modified SmartArt.

FIGURE 22.10

The SmartArt now has text.

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FIGURE 22.11

The SmartArt, after adding a new element.

When working with SmartArt, keep in mind that you can move, resize, or format individually any element within the graphic. Select the element and then use the tools on the SmartArt Tools Format tab.

Changing the layout

You can easily change the layout of a SmartArt diagram. Select the object and then choose SmartArt Tools Design Layouts. Any text that you’ve entered remains intact. Figure 22.12 shows a few alternate layouts for the previous example.

Changing the style

After you decide on a layout, you may want to consider other styles or colors available in the SmartArt Tools Design SmartArt Styles group. Figure 22.13 shows the diagram after I chose a different style and changed the colors.

Tip

SmartArt styles available vary depending upon the document theme assigned to the workbook. To change a workbook’s theme, choose Page Layout Themes Themes. Switching to a different theme can have a dramatic impact on the appearance of SmartArt diagrams. n

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FIGURE 22.12

A few different layouts for the SmartArt.

FIGURE 22.13

A few mouse clicks changed the style of this diagram.

Learning more about SmartArt

This section provided a basic introduction to SmartArt. The topic is complex enough to warrant an entire book, but I recommend simply experimenting with the commands.

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