SmartArt

To many professionals, using SmartArt in Excel may seem to be an unlikely topic. After all, Excel is all about numbers and analysis. Other than Charts, Graphics are seldom thought of, or used in spreadsheets.

SmartArt is, of course, a special group of Graphic Objects that gives the user the ability to create diagrams and illustrations with ease. With the advent of Excel 2010, the selections of SmartArt objects was significantly expanded, giving the Excel Guru more opportunities to make his or her spreadsheet stand out from the masses.

But Why would you want to put graphics in your spreadsheet? Well, consider this example: Let’s say you are a human resources analyst, and you are doing a study regarding the Salaries for the various job levels in your company. You can easily enhance your report to upper management by inserting a well-designed Org Chart into your Excel workbook. Effortlessly done with SmartArt!

 To Insert a SmartArt Object, Simply Do the Following:

1)  Go to the Illustrations group on the Insert tab

2)   Click on SmartArt

3)   Click on the type of object (e.g. Process, Cycle, Hierarchy, etc) you want to insert

4)  Choose the graphic that best suits your purposes and enter your information

5)   Format as desired

Bonus: To quickly insert SmartArt using your keyboard, just press Alt+NM. Bamm!

SmartArt. Another way to make your Excel reports communicate visually and set you apart as the Guru you truly are!