Picture it!

Last week I suggested that you lighten the text load by turning bulleted slides into SmartArt Graphics. Some of the designs allow for both a picture and text, which is a useful way of visualising your message.

When you want to illustrate relationships for example, a relationship of flow, sequence, or between entities, SmartArt presents you with a variety of diagrams to use. Select SmartArt from the Illustrations group on the Insert ribbon: 

While this may be a way to go, these built-in diagrams can be inflexible, hard to edit, hard to customise and hard to animate. It’s not always easy to find a diagram that exactly communicates your message.

A useful free resource on the internet is Diagrammer.com. This is a part of the Duarte.com site, an innovative communications company that is worth exploring in its own right. They have designed over 4000 free diagrams for people to use. These diagrams are flexible and customisable.

It is easy to use

Select the category of diagram you want to use. 

Use the explanation below each one to help you.

 

Select the number of objects and 2D/3D

Select the number of objects you need. The system shows you standard images of objects no matter what diagram you choose. Don’t worry that the images don’t match your chosen diagram.

Select 2D or 3D. (2D is always the better choice for presentations).

 

Select the diagram

The system displays all the shapes that match your criteria above. Select which one you want. There may be more than one page of options.

 

 

Download the file

You will be asked to fill in a form like this:

As soon as you click Submit it will download. Save it to your PC. 

You now have a PowerPoint file that contains the diagram on a single slide in the file. Each of the objects is separate on the slide, so they are easy to edit.