Chapter 9

Illustrating Your Worksheets with Pictures, SmartArt, and More

To give your workbooks visual interest, you can add graphics, shapes, SmartArt diagrams, and WordArt items to them. Graphics are pictures and images in the various formats that Excel can import, and shapes are Excel's built-in shapes, which include everything from simple arrows and regular shapes (such as circles, squares, and triangles) to complex shapes you create on the fly. SmartArt includes a range of graphics such as organization charts and flowcharts, while WordArt is graphical text that you create to your preferred design.

This chapter shows you how to insert clip art and other pictures, how to insert shapes and format them, and how to position graphical objects where you want them. You'll learn how to make a picture look the way you want it, how to position graphical objects wherever you need them, and how to illustrate your workbooks by adding SmartArt diagrams and WordArt items. Beyond that, I show you how to position graphical items relative to cells and how to arrange graphical objects to control which ones are visible.

Before we start, there's one vital thing you need to know: Even though a worksheet appears to be flat, it actually consists of multiple separate layers. Until you add objects to a layer, the layer is transparent, so you see through the layer to whatever is underneath. One layer contains the worksheet's cells; the other layers contain graphical objects. Having these multiple layers enables you to position graphical objects either in front of the cells or behind them. You can also position a graphical object in front of another graphical object; for example, to superimpose one image on another.