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
    2016-11-26T22:07:14+00:00

    I've found a tricky way to normalized rezise.

    It is useful if you want to make all shapes have identical size

    scale the frame size as you want, then select all boxes into, like a group.

    then press shif+any arrow (up, down , left or right). The shapes will start scaling together,

    scale them to justify frame size.

    then scale the frame as your needed size.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-12-06T07:09:34+00:00

    I've just done some work in Excel 2010 so sorry if doesn't work in Office 2007 or doesn't help when working in Word or Powerpoint... hopefully it helps a little....

    VBA solution to re-size the smart art shape and leave it as a smart art

    Set oshp = ActiveWorkbook.Worksheets("YourWorkSheetName").Shapes("YourShapeName") 'Note: smartshape can be renamed in the 'Smartart Tools > Arrange > Selection Pane' ribbon

    'make the smartart shape really small so we can resize it later

    oshp.Height = 70

    oshp.Width = 130

    '...add your build the org chart code here....

    'now resize the org chart

    Set NodeFirst = oshp.SmartArt.AllNodes(1).Shapes(1)

    If NodeFirst.Height > 100 Then

    factor = NodeFirst.Height / 100 ' calculate a factor to resize the smart art

    Else

    factor = 100 / NodeFirst.Height

    End If

    oshp.ScaleHeight factor, msoFalse, msoScaleFromTopLeft ' now resize the entire shape height by the same factor

    oshp.ScaleWidth factor, msoFalse, msoScaleFromTopLeft ' now resize the entire shape height by the same factor

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-12-14T07:30:30+00:00

    Dear,

    you cannot stop auto adjusting the blocks.

    But you can change the size of block or font by selecting it.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-02-01T16:53:01+00:00

    I usually draw a table and then move the cells as I wish. Any shape I want I can add inside the cell. Then clear the lines of the table I no longer require

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