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Click the Insert tab. Click the SmartArt button in the Illustrations group. A dialog box opens, displaying categories of SmartArt on the left, styles of SmartArt graphics in the middle, and a preview and description of the selected SmartArt on the right.

Click the SmartArt graphic that you want to add a box to. Click the existing box that is located closest to where you want to add the new box. Under SmartArt Tools, on the Design tab, in the Create Graphic group, click the arrow under Add Shape. If you don't see the SmartArt Tools or Design tabs, make sure that you've selected the SmartArt graphic.

Smarter Art

Create Custom SmartArt Graphics For Use In The 2007 Office System

Janet Schorr

This article discusses:

SmartArt graphic data model
Creating XML for custom SmartArt graphics
Algorithms, constraints, and rules
Testing and debugging custom SmartArt graphics

This article uses the following technologies:
The 2007 Microsoft Office System

Code download available at: Smart Art 2007_02.exe(152 KB)

Contents

Planning a Graphic Layout
Layout Nodes and Algorithms
Layout Tree and Data Model Mapping
Shape Properties
Constraints, Rules, and Text Properties
Packaging the Layout Definition File
Testing the Graphic Layout
Error Types and the Error Log
Valid File with Design Errors
Modifying Existing Graphic Layout Definitions
What's Next?

The 2007 Microsoft Office system offers a new way to quickly add polished graphics and diagrams to your Office files, including Word documents, Excel® spreadsheets, PowerPoint® presentations, and Outlook® e-mail messages. The new feature, called SmartArt™ graphics, incorporates a gallery (library) of templates and predefined shapes that can be quickly inserted and configured. It provides automatic sizing and alignment, while allowing you to edit objects and properties (see Figure 1 for several examples). But as you work with these graphics, experimenting with all the possibilities, it's easy to imagine additional graphics you'd like to see in the gallery. This isn't a problem-SmartArt graphics is completely extensible, allowing you to create your own layouts.

Each graphic layout in the SmartArt layout gallery has its own underlying XML file that defines how the SmartArt graphic will construct the object based on the dataset entered by the user (in the case of Figure 1, this dataset consisted of three text strings: 'Design', 'Create', and 'Test'). SmartArt graphic layouts use a specific set of algorithms that provide different layout options, including a linear flow algorithm, a cycle algorithm, and two algorithms that work together to create a hierarchy diagram. It also supports a composite algorithm that lets you determine exactly where and how to size and position various shapes, giving you the flexibility to create a wide range of graphics. In this article, I'll go through the basics of creating your own SmartArt graphic layout.

Figure 1a** Sample Diagrams Created with SmartArt Graphics **

Figure 1b

Figure 1c

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Figure 1d

Planning a Graphic Layout

The first step in creating a SmartArt graphic layout is deciding what the graphic should look like. Once that's settled, you can start to analyze the SmartArt graphic to figure out how to create it.

Let's say you want to create a graphic that looks like the one shown in Figure 2. It will take several steps to achieve this SmartArt graphic, and I'll walk through the details of each in this article. First, figure out the shapes you'll need to create the graphic-in this case, you'll need rounded rectangles for the blue shapes, rectangles for the white lines, and rectangles with no lines or fill for text areas.

Figure 2** Target Graphic Layout **(Click the image for a larger view)

Next, look at how the shapes are arranged. In this case, the blue rectangles are in a horizontal line, starting at the left side of the drawing area; the white boxes are combined with the blue boxes to create a single composite shape; and there is white space between each of the composite shapes. The arrangement of shapes is determined by one of SmartArt's algorithms for linear flows, bending linear flows, cycles, hierarchies, and composite (or fixed position) layouts.

Now look at how the text is displayed in the shapes. All SmartArt graphics map back to an underlying data model that can be visualized as a hierarchical list. For example, the text shown in the graphic in Figure 2 is based on the list shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 Model

Design
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Create
Step One
Step Two
Step Three
Test
Step One
Step Two
Step Three

In a SmartArt graphic, each shape can support multiple levels of text, which map back to this structure. In the sample in Figure 2, each composite shape contains two levels of text. The first level is sometimes called parent text or level-one items. The second level is sometimes called child text or level-two items. In general, child text has bullets in front to show that it's subordinate to the parent text.

The final step is to determine how you want it to display when it's abstracted away from a specific dataset. SmartArt graphic layouts provide a number of possibilities.

Static Graphic Layout If you always want to display the same number of shapes, you can create a static graphic layout. For our example, I can create a layout that always includes three shapes. The text from the users first three level-one items displays in the shapes, but any text added to subsequent level-one items won't display.

Semi-Dynamic Graphic Layout Using a semi-dynamic graphic layout, you can display only as many composite shapes as there are level-one items, up to a specified maximum number of shapes. For this example, I can create a graphic that includes from zero to three composite shapes. As users add subsequent lines of level-one text, new shapes are added. However, if they add more than three lines of level-one text, no new shapes are added.

Dynamic Graphic Layout A dynamic graphic layout isn't limited to a specific number of shapes. You can have as many composite shapes as there are lines of level-one text. As more shapes are added, the shapes get smaller as needed to fit inside the drawing area. For our sample graphic, a dynamic graphic layout is the best choice.

Layout Nodes and Algorithms

SmartArt graphic layouts are created in XML files that describe what shapes to create, how they map back to the data model, and which algorithms to use to lay out the shapes. (The XML files are part of an open document package, similar to the new file formats used for Word and PowerPoint.) One of these files, layout1.xml, provides the main layout definition.

The basic building block of a layout definition is the layout node. Each node in a layout has an associated algorithm that specifies either how to size and position its child layout nodes or how to size the text within its shape. Ultimately, all the nodes in a layout are nested together under a single layout node (see Figure 4).

Figure 4** Graphical Layout Definition **(Click the image for a larger view)

The layout nodes in the layout definition form a hierarchical layout tree. In

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