Design Corner: Enlivening Your Organization Charts
You can use PowerPoint's organization chart functionality to create a variety 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 you created a basic org 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 the following “Before figure”). 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:
Click the AutoFormat button on the Organization Chart toolbar to open the Organization Chart Style Gallery.
Select the style you prefer (such as Brackets) and click Apply.
Click and drag the mouse to form a dotted rectangle surrounding your entire org chart to select it.
Click the Bold button on the Formatting toolbar to bold all org chart text.
Select the top-level shape; click the Increase Font Size button on the Formatting toolbar to increase the font size of this org chart shape. The following “After figure” illustrates the improved org chart. If you want, you can make other changes as well—revising 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. There are a multitude of options—just don't go overboard and make your org chart harder to read rather than easier to read.
Before
Figure 12.8.
After
Figure 12.9.
