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
    2018-03-28T18:25:51+00:00

    It's 2016 and I'm having this issue. Wasting SO many hours on Org charts when it should be a simple function of adding context to boxes and being able to manipulate them how YOU choose!! Please tell me SmartArt has gotten "smart" over these years.....

    Sadly, SmartArt is a still useless and wasting hours in 2018. After writing my thesis the past few months with Microsoft Word auto-formatting the stupidest things and wasting time that way, SmartArt is wasting time while preparing my defense powerpoint. And god forbid we make one small change, as it'll reformat the whole figure! I can't believe it is still useless after all these years.

    One thing is for sure, Microsoft is certainly consistent....

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-12-07T07:46:21+00:00

    I totally agree with you!!  I appreciate that you can use standard shapes and create your own hierarchy, moving and resizing boxes as you wish, but this is not the best solution for someone who relies on a screen reader.  Whilst PowerPoint is not the most accessible of packages, the SmartArt option at least gives someone with a visual impairment a decent chance of being able to create and amend a chart.  There must be some way to lock down the size of the box once you have entered the text and got it how you want it to look.  Come on Microsoft - help us out here!

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-08-29T18:19:22+00:00

    UGGG! I was led here by the chat help person. There appears to be no solution. I'm doing org charts also and the only reason I'm using powerpoint is because they need to be editable by everyone. If I had it my way I'd use real design software like Illustrator or even keynote.

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  4. Anonymous
    2010-09-28T20:40:49+00:00

    I wonder if they fix this BUG in 2010 or is it still a problem?

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