Smart Art is a feature that was introduced to Microsoft Office in the 2002/2003 version, but it was expanded and beefed up (hmmm momentary distraction - is the phrase "beefed up" offensive to vegetarians?) in the Office 2007 version (yes Office - it's in Word, Excel and Powerpoint). Let me just tell you right now that this is not only one of THE *coolest* features ever in Microsoft Office, it's also one of the most fun to play with. Just take my word for it and take three minutes RIGHT NOW to check it out, if you haven't played with it before. You'll be glad you did. :)

Think back... to the dark ages... and for some of you, it may have been just yesterday... when your boss asked you to put together a simple diagram - perhaps a flow chart or whatever, where you have four or five boxes, each with a word in each box, maybe arrows pointing from one box to the next. Easy peasy, right? Then remember how your boss always came back and either asked for one more box to be added in the middle or one box removed. Remember how you had to manually resize all the text when you resized the boxes? Remember how you had to manually resize and move the boxes to accommodate changes? Remember having to flip all the arrows by hand when your boss decided to reverse the flow? Remember how excited you were when you learned how to select more than one box at a time and move things as a group cause every little tip helped save you at least a little bit of time for this project that sometimes took hours?

Welcome to the Age of Enlightenment, otherwise known as Smart Art. In Office 2003, the button is located on your drawing toolbar - you'll just have to poke around and play with it and know that 2003 can do most of what I am about to say. The rest of these instructions are based on Office 2007.

Click the Insert Ribbon, then the Smart Art button.  A window pops up offering you all kinds of graphics (like organization chart style, relationships, pyramids, cycles, etc.). Each one of those options on the left shows different graphics on the right hand side. Pick one you like. For purposes of illustration, scroll down and pick the first graphic under Cycles (five circles with arrows connecting them). Like magic, a graphic pops up in your window with five windows and arrows connecting them. On the left hand side is a window with a bulleted list. If you don't see that bulleted list, just left mouse click on the two triangles in the middle of the left hand side of the graphic or click Text Pane on the Design Ribbon. 

1. Type Apple as the first bullet. See how Apple gets added to the first circle.
2. Type Watermelon as the second circle. Note how the text automatically resizes itself in the circles to match each other with the longer word.
3. Delete the third bullet. Note how one of the circles gets deleted, so you now have four circles instead of five, and notice how the text resized itself slightly larger to allow for this.
4. Delete the third bullet again. Note how another circle gets deleted, so you now have three circles instead of four and notice how the text resized itself slightly larger to allow for this.
5. Hit enter, and see how a new blank bullet is added and a new circle is added back to bring us back to four circles. Type Lemon for this bullet and Lime in the last bullet.
6. Look up at your ribbon bars and you will see that new ribbon bars were added for Design and Format (as long as you are clicked on your Smart Art diagram). Note that you have buttons on the Design ribbon that allow you to add a shape before after your current circle (you can also do this by just pressing enter in the bulleted list).

Boss decided to reverse the order of the boxes? Woo hoo! The right to left button acts as a toggle to reverse or restore the order.

You'll see a group of buttons in the Layout palette. Click on the double triangle button at the bottom and all the cycles options become available. You can move your mouse over each graphic to get a preview in your document of how it will look (note that sometimes it doesn't look the way you would expect, sometimes you have to play with them a bit).

But wait, your boss comes back and says let's do this as a table format instead. You'll remember the dark ages briefly and cringe in pain. Oh yes, I well remember, selecting those boxes, deleting them, drawing new circles or triangles or whatever and basically starting over. Now? Ha! I laugh in the face of starting over. Instead I just click More Layouts at the bottom of the Layouts group of graphics. It brings up that original list of Smart Art diagrams and I can choose the first graphic under List. Voila, my round circles are converted to text box tables going across the page instead.

Bossie comes back and raves about the new layout, except that he really doesn't care for the color scheme. Oh ye of little faith... See the button called color scheme? Just click and you can see the Live Preview of colors as you move your mouse over the various options. Want it to look even a little bit fancier but still subtle? Move your mouse over the Smart Art Styles buttons and you'll see changes in shading, 3D effects and more. And again, click on the double triangle button and you'll see all the options at once.

The Format ribbon will give you more control over things like the font effects and borders, as well as things like wrapping document text around your diagram.

One last tip. Don't like the final size of the diagram? It's a picture! You can click and drag along the dots on the edges just like any other object in Office.

Play around. I think you will agree that Smart Art is one of the..

Coolest. Things. EVER!