Smart Art re-sizing issue

Anonymous
2010-02-16T20:44:14+00:00

I often need to use hierarchies in presentations and documents (word or powerpoint). The smart art function seems like a dream for this sort of thing, however, it never works. Anything more than the simplest graphic is hopelessly mis-sized.  The problem is, as you add more layers, the boxes and the size shrink. When you attempt to change the size on one box (eg make it bigger), the other boxes change (become even smaller) relative to the first box. It is like some sort of cruel joke: the more you try to fix one box, the more jumbled the other boxes become. A hierarchy would be far more useful if you could adjust the sizes of individual boxes to show their relative importance or to emphasize a particular part.

There must be some way to lock the the size/position of part of the graphic or to adjust only specific parts without effecting the others. If not, then this "tool" strikes me as completely useless and I wonder if anyone anywhere in the world ever uses it? I have not been able to find any help any place else, so this is my last hope.

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Anonymous
2010-02-18T00:29:09+00:00

Yeah, I read that help article before I posted here. It does not answer the question.

Let me restate the problem. When you change the size of one box, the others change as well. I suppose that it is intended to be relative size change (as discussed in the help article), but it does not work with hierarchies of more than three levels or when resizing several boxes. I guess the algorithms which are meant to auto adjust the relative size where not constructed to handle anything more than the most simple graphic.

So, again, the question is: **is there a way to disable the auto re-sizing of shapes.**In other words, to prevent powerpoint (or word) from auto re-sizing boxes and only change the size of a single box.

This problem seems to be worse in powerpoint, but is easily demonstrated in word as well.

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-02-22T21:05:12+00:00

    Nope - everything else still resizes.  Doesn't really fix the problem - it just moves it around.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-02-22T14:18:26+00:00

    Looks like this problem has been kicked around for 2 years, and there is obviously no solution.

    I think it will have to be a "work-around". Try the following:

    1. mark a region around the boxes you want to re-size
    2. Re-size them as a group, and move them to desired location.
    3. This can compress the structure of the hierachy, but this can be fixed by marking new regions around collections of boxes, and then moving the whole group to a new desired location.
    4. Tidy up any remaining boxes that have been moved to bad locations.

    Very fiddly, but hey, it can be done.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-11-05T09:17:12+00:00

    I had the same problem. I solved it by going to the Format tab above after selecting the object. Then go to Group and make it Ungrouped. This way you can resize it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-10-05T23:25:46+00:00

    It's no real fix, but a better alternative is Shapes rather than text boxes.  Using Shapes with "Connectors" to join them, when you move or resize an object, the "connector" line stays attached and moves with it. 

    This article goes into the 2 "tricks" you need to make it work best, using a drawing canvas and using connectors instead of the simple lines.

    Using Connectors with Shapes – Mind Map

    http://wordribbon.tips.net/T006277_Using_Connectors_with_Shapes.html

    Summary: If you add shapes to the drawing canvas, you can use connector lines between those shapes. Here's how to add them to your drawing efforts. (This tip works with MS Word 2007, 2010.)

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