In yesterday’s blog post, I talked about how to add images to blog posts in Word 2007. Today, I will explain how to use Word 2007 to add diagrams to your blog posts.

The brand new diagramming feature in Word 2007 is called “SmartArt”. The “SmartArt” feature generates diagrams of textual information, such as flowcharts, hierarchical diagrams, and relationship diagrams. To add a “SmartArt” diagram, just do the following:

1. Open up a new blog post.
   1. Note: If you don’t know how to open a new blog post, see Wednesday’s post.
   2. Note: These instructions will only work in Microsoft Word 2007; they will not work in earlier versions of Word.
2. Click the “Insert” tab on the ribbon.
3. In the “Illustrations” section of the ribbon, click “SmartArt” and then select the type of chart that you would like to create. A “SmartArt” chart will appear into your blog post.
4. Add text into the diagram in one of two ways:
   1. Type text directly into the shapes in your diragram
   2. Type text in bullet format into the “Type Your Text Here” box

Now that you have a basic “SmartArt” diagram set up, you can now add styling to it. After a diagram is created, two tabs under the text, “SmartArt Tools,” will appear. The tools in the “Design” tab allow you to change the visual layout and color scheme of the entire “SmartArt” chart. The tools in the “Format” tab allow you to fine-tune the styling of each element in a chart. Here is a sample of a “SmartArt” diagram:

In the above sample, I took the “Gears” diagram and added gradients to all of the shapes; I added reflections to the bottom two gears. I hope that this tutorial is helpful for those who want to make their blog posts more interesting. Stay tuned for more information about using Office 2007 to make your blog better. Have fun posting to your blog!