Design Corner: Enlivening Your Organization Charts

Design Corner: Enlivening Your Organization Charts

You can use PowerPoint's organization chart to create all kinds of hierarchical charts and then use the style gallery and other formatting features to enliven your chart and make it coordinate with the rest of your presentation. For example, let's say that you created a basic organization chart for your department using the default options, showing you as the department manager with an assistant and three staffers reporting to you. It conveys the basic information you want, but lacks pizzazz (see Figure 12.8). You decide that you want to apply a different style, bold the names and titles to make them easier to read, and increase the font size in the shape that contains your name and title. (You are the boss, after all.) To quickly do this, follow these steps:

1. Click the AutoFormat button on the Organization Chart toolbar to open the Organization Chart Style Gallery.

2. Select the style you prefer (such as Bookend Fills) and click Apply.

3. Hold down the Ctrl key and click all management-level boxes.

4. Click the Bold button on the Formatting toolbar to bold the text in management boxes.

5. Select the top-level box; click the Increase Font Size button on the Formatting toolbar to increase the font size of this organization chart shape.

6. For each line manager who has reports , select the manager's box and choose Layout, Right Hanging on the Organization Chart toolbar.

Figure 12.8.

Figure 12.9 illustrates the improved organization chart. If you wanted, you could make other changes as wellrevising font colors, italicizing job titles, modifying the options in the Format Organization Chart dialog box (right-click and choose Format Organization Chart to open), and so forth. Just be careful not to go overboard and make your organization chart harder to read.

Figure 12.9.

Before

After