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Old 05-08-2019, 06:42 PM
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Guessed Guessed is offline Windows 10 Office 2016
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Smart Art is highly automated but relies heavily on specific rules to lay out the shapes. For this reason it is not flexible when you want to vary the script such as adding dotted lines.

I wouldn't say it is a flaw with the program but it certainly is a limitation with SmartArt.

IMO, Visio is better for org charts but even the OrgChart Wizard suffers a similar behaviour. You need to be careful about the autolayout features there too.

My recommendation is to not use Word's SmartArt if you have a need for customisations. In fact, I would never recommend Word as a drawing tool - better to use purpose-built applications and let Word manage the word processing and layout. You should use Visio and export the graphic to a format that can be inserted into Word in a robust way. We use a high resolution PNG to avoid any font issues and find a macro is best for creating the exported PNG in Visio.
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Andrew Lockton
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