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Modifying Diagram Layout
There are two types of changes you can make to a diagram: those that affect the physical structure or layout, and those that are purely cosmetic formatting. I'll address them separately in this chapter.The following sections explain the structural changes you can make to a diagram.
Adding or Deleting Shapes
The Diagram toolbar appears whenever the diagram is selected and includes an Insert Shape button. Use it to insert additional shapes. See Figure 10-8 for an example, but the button's picture varies depending on the diagram type. You do not get to choose the shape; it inserts whatever shape is appropriate for the chosen diagram.
Figure 10-8: The Diagram toolbar when a pyramid diagram is selected- it is similar for other diagram types.
For some diagram types, it's important to select an existing shape that the new one should be inserted adjacent to (or subordinate to, in the case of charts that have hierarchical levels). For other types, it does not matter.To delete a shape, click it to select it in the diagram. Gray circles appear around it with Xs in the centers, as shown in Figure 10-9. Press the Delete key on the keyboard.
Figure 10-9: A selected shape has gray circle selection handles.
Changing the Layout Flow
Each diagram flows in a certain direction. A cycle diagram flows either clockwise or counterclockwise. A pyramid flows either up or down. A radial or target diagram flows from the outside in or from the inside out. If you realize after typing all the text that you should have made the diagram flow in the other direction, you can change it by clicking the Reverse Diagram button on the Diagram toolbar. For example, in Figure 10-10, the diagram from Figure 10-9 has been reversed so that Executives are at the bottom of the pyramid and the workers are on top.
Figure 10-10: Reversing the diagram flow changes which labels are assigned to which shapes.
| Tip | After reversing the flow of pyramid labels as shown in Figure 10-10, you might find that the labels run outside the top few slices. If this is a problem, you might be able to make the labels fit with a combination of line breaks (Shift+Enter) and font changes. |
Rearranging Shapes
Not only can you reverse the overall flow of the diagram, but you can also move around individual shapes. For example, suppose you have a diagram that illustrates five steps in a process and you realize that steps 3 and 4 are out of order. You can move one of them without having to retype all the labels.To move a shape, select it and then click the Move Shape Forward or Move Shape Backward button on the Diagram toolbar. These buttons look different depending on what kind of diagram you are working with, but they are always the second and third buttons on the Diagram toolbar (except for an org chart, which doesn't allow this kind of rearranging.) Figure 10-11 shows them for a Radial type diagram; compare to Figure 10-8, which showed the toolbar for a Pyramid diagram.
Figure 10-11: Move a shape forward or backward in the diagram structure with the Diagram toolbar.
Changing the Diagram Type
Except for the organization chart, you can change any diagram type to any other diagram type. To change the diagram type, click the Change To button on the Diagram toolbar and choose the desired layout from the menu. (See Figure 10-12, where the current diagram type is the unavailable one-Target.)
Figure 10-12: Switch to a different diagram type with the Change To button.
| Tip | To change the diagram type as described in this section, you must have Auto-Format and AutoLayout both turned on. If they're not on, you'll be prompted to allow PowerPoint to turn them on. Note that this will sometimes affect color changes you might have made to the diagram, so it's better to decide on the appropriate diagram type before customizing. |
Resizing a Diagram
There are two ways to resize a diagram frame. You can resize it so that the diagram itself does not change size-only its frame-or you can resize so that both the frame and the diagram inside change.To resize the frame only, leaving the diagram at its default size, click Layout on the Diagram toolbar and choose Resize Diagram. Black line selection handles appear around the border, and you can drag them to resize the frame. You cannot resize the frame so small that the diagram will no longer fit, but you can make it as large as desired (see Figure 10-13). When you are finished resizing, press Esc to cancel the mode.
Figure 10-13: Resizing with Resize Diagram turned on resizes only the frame.
| Note | To reset the frame so that it is only as large as it needs to be for the diagram inside, open the Layout menu on the Diagram toolbar and choose Fit Diagram to Contents. |
To resize the frame and the diagram as a whole, simply drag its regular white round selection handles. The entire diagram resizes along with the frame, as shown in Figure 10-14.
Figure 10-14: Resizing a diagram with its normal selection handles changes the size of everything in the frame as well as the frame itself.
Disabling AutoLayout
AutoLayout is turned on by default. It makes the entire diagram a single object that you move, resize, and otherwise manipulate as a whole. In most cases you will want to leave it turned on. However, sometimes some manual changes are necessary in a diagram, and these can be accomplished only after turning AutoLayout off.To toggle AutoLayout on or off, choose it from the Layout menu on the Diagram toolbar.The most obvious immediate consequence of disabling AutoLayout is that each part of the chart becomes a separate, free object with its own white circle selection handles. You can move parts of the chart around as if they were normal AutoShapes, format them, and do anything else you would like to do to them. See Figure 10-15 for an example.
Figure 10-15: Turning off AutoLayout makes all kinds of manual changes possible for the layout.
Making Manual Layout Changes
Here are some things you can do to a diagram after turning off AutoLayout:
Make any part larger or smaller by dragging its selection handles.
Alter a shape, in some cases, by dragging the yellow diamond on it (as with AutoShapes in general). For example, you can make the circle segments in a Cycle diagram fatter, thinner, longer, or shorter.
Change the shape to an entirely different AutoShape with the Draw⇨Change AutoShape command.
Reposition a shape by dragging it to a new location. For example, you can make the circles in a Venn diagram overlap less or more than the default, or make one of them not overlap at all with the others.
Reposition a text by dragging it to a new location. For example, if you have too much text in a text box it might overlap with a shape in the diagram; you can scoot it over so it doesn't anymore. Or, you can intentionally place a text box on top of a shape.
Add other objects to the diagram. For example, you can add extra text boxes with explanatory text. To do so, make sure the diagram frame is selected, and then use the Text Box tool in the Drawing toolbar to create a new text box. Or alternatively, copy one of the existing text boxes in the diagram by Ctrl+dragging it.
