Go to Insert ? Illustrations ? SmartArt, pick a category on the left, such as Process, Hierarchy or Cycle, choose a layout and click OK.
Type into the shapes directly, or open the Text Pane with the small arrow on the left edge of the graphic. In the Text Pane, press Enter to add a shape, Tab to move a line down a level and Shift + Tab to move it back up.
With the graphic selected, the SmartArt Design tab has Add Shape, Promote, Demote, Change Colors and the style gallery, and the Format tab changes individual shapes. To remove a shape, click its border and press Delete.
For a layout with photos, choose the Picture category and click the image icon in each shape to add one.
SmartArt text cannot be linked to cells, so it does not update when your data changes. For a diagram that shows live values, use ordinary shapes instead: select a shape, type =B2 in the formula bar and press Enter. Convert to Shapes on the SmartArt Design tab turns the graphic into separate shapes, but you can no longer switch layouts afterwards.
Smart Art is a feature in Excel used to effectively represent your information, messages, and ideas with the help of visual graphics.
With Smart Art Graphics you can insert different types of graphics as per your need which allows you to add text and images to them.
Smart Art Graphic can be used to represent information in the form of an Organizational chart, Process flows, List information, Repetitive or Cyclic information, Matrix, Images, and so on.
Steps to Insert Smart Art Graphics
- First, go to the “Insert” tab and then click on the “Smart Art” icon under the “Illustrations” group and you will get the “Smart Art Graphic” dialog box opened.
- After that, choose the graphic category as per your need from the left panel of the dialog box and then choose the graphic design and click OK.
- Once click OK you will get your graphic design available where you can write your messages, captions, highlights, etc.
Insert Smart Art Graphics with Images Options
Smart Art also allows you to add images and if you want to add the images along with the text in the Smart Art graphic, you can do it by just following the below steps:
- First, go to the “Insert” tab and then click on the “Smart Art” icon under the “Illustrations” group and you will get the “Smart Art Graphic” dialog box opened.
- After that, choose the graphic category “Picture” from the left panel of the dialog box and then choose the graphic design and click OK.
- At this point, you will get the graphic design that allows you to also add images along with the text options.
- Now, click on the image icon to insert the image from your local system, online, or Excel inbuilt icons.
- From here, choose the option from where you want to add or insert the image.
Added images will get added within the shapes and will look as per the below image.
Formatting of Smart Art Graphics
Excel Smart Art also allows you to format the Smart Art graphics designs. You can format the background color, add shapes, delete shapes, and many more.
- First, select the existing graphic design and you will get the “Smart Art Design” tab.
- After that click on the “Smart Art Design” tab and you will find multiple formatting options to format the existing graphic design.
- Now, to change the background color of the boxes in the design, click on the “Change Colors” icon and choose from the colors drop-down and it will get applied.
- To add the additional shapes, select the existing shape before or after which you want to add another shape, and then click on the “Add Shape” icon and select the “Add Shape After or before” as you need.
- Once you choose the option (we choose here “Add Shape After”) and it will add the shape just after the shape you had selected.
- To switch the position of the shapes, click on “Move Up” or “Right to Left” and to delete the text shapes click on “Demote”.
When you move, resize, or adjust any shape in the design, other available shapes will get adjusted accordingly but to make other shapes constant/fixed you can convert the design into shapes format by clicking on “Convert to Shapes” after which design of the graphic will get converted into shapes format and along with this the formatting options will also get changed.
