TO ASK A QUESTION: If you have a question or need help with Office, please feel free to use the 'Click to Contact' link at the bottom of this page. You'll get a form that you can use to email a question to me. (I had been getting a ton of spam when accepting direct emails, so only emails that use this form will get through to me.)

Please be sure to mention the version of Office you are using when you send your question.

I answer all e-mails that I receive via this form, as long as they are polite :)

Since disabling comments on this site, I'm actually hearing from more of you with questions ... so, as it seems people prefer to email rather than comment, I'm going to leave comments disabled. As always, you can ask me any Office-related questions you have. If the question is outside of my expertise, I'll try to direct you to where you can get an answer.

I write a lot about how important it is for your Office documents to use the best tool for the task. There are at least five ways to do just about anything you could want to do in your documents ... but the fact is that there's usually a best way.

So, how do you know if one approach is better than another ... why should you care ... and what does this have to do with using PowerPoint for your Word documents?

Well, using the best tool for the task can:

- save you time (because the best tool is usually the option that requires the least work)

- save you stress (because the best tool is always the one that will help your documents remain stable and easy-to-manage)

- and give you the best results.

As for using PowerPoint to create graphics for Word -- well, here's the gloss-free answer: if you own PowerPoint, there is almost never a good reason to create drawing objects directly in Word. Yes, really! It's nice to have the Drawing toolbar in Word for when you don't have access to PowerPoint ... when you need to troubleshoot drawing objects that are already there ... or when you absolutely can't do without that occassional text box.

BUT -- your Word documents will be much happier (and make you much happier) if you take advantage of the more flexible drawing tools and object-management capabilities available in PowerPoint.

Word, like all of the Office applications (but even more so) is all about keeping things simple. Less work in = better results out. When you have floating objects in your document (such as drawing objects or diagrams created with the Diagram and Organizational Chart tool on the drawing toolbar), they sit on an entirely different layer of the document from your text and tables, literally adding a layer of complication that your document neither wants nor needs. And, though AutoShapes in Word 2003 appear to have the option to be formatted with the Inline With Text layout (Format, AutoShape, Layout) -- it's not really inline with text at all ... AutoShapes always float. Objects and pictures formatted as Inline With Text behave just like text, so they are much easier for your Word documents to manage: you can place them inside table cells, and/or format them with font and paragraph formatting (such as Character Spacing or Space before\After the paragraph). And, when you need text or other content next to your graphic -- just place that graphic inside a table cell (when formatted with the Inline With Text layout, it will sit easily and securely inside that table cell). It might seem easier to leave your graphic floating and let text wrap around it, but believe me -- just give Inline With Text a try and you'll be amazed at how much easier your graphics are to manage!

... for more details on reasons to use Inline With Text vs. Float Over Text layout options and the implications of both, check out an earlier post -- To Float or Not to Float.

PowerPoint, on the other hand, is all about floating objects. Everything in PowerPoint floats -- it's designed to work with them, so arranging, formatting, and editing shapes and other objects in PowerPoint is easier than in Word. And, you have more timesaving tools available for this purpose in PowerPoint. For example:

- To add text to an AutoShape in PowerPoint, just select the shape and start typing.

- When you need to align shapes in ways that won't work using the Align Or Distribute tools on the Drawing toolbar's Draw menu, turn on PowerPoint's Drawing Guides (select Display Drawing Guides On Screen from View, Grid and Guides). Once you turn on the guides, you can Ctrl+Click and drag to duplicate guides (make as many as you need) and just drag duplicate guides off the slide to remove them. And, use the guides to measure position on the slide (when you click and drag on a guide it automatically shows you its position relative to the center of the slide).

... If you're new to guides, you might also find it handy to know that you can hold down the Shift key when you click and drag on a guide to have its position display start at zero regardless of where the guide is positioned (so that you can easily measure the distance between objects).

So, how about the Diagram and Organizational Chart tool? Well, I prefer to use AutoShapes, personally. I find them much more flexible and not much more work than using that tool -- but, in PowerPoint, there's nothing wrong with using the tool if it works for you. I say 'in PowerPoint' because graphics created are placed inside a Drawing Canvas -- which is a type of frame ... and, as you probably know, frames can be a source of instability in complex Word documents. (Which raises the point that you will probably find the occassional drawing object you must create in Word to be easier to handle if you turn off the feature that automatically inserts a drawing canvas whenever you create AutoShapes in Word (go to Tools, Options, General in Word to disable that feature).)

If you choose to create your diagrams or organizational charts using AutoShapes in PowerPoint ... remember that you have several timesaving formatting features available to you. For example:

- Always use the Align Or Distribute tools (on the Drawing toolbar's Draw menu) to arrange your objects. It's so much faster than nudging and more precise.

- Did you know that you can select an entire flowchart, organizational chart, or any group of AutoShapes and then go to Draw, Change AutoShape to change them all to a different shape in a single click? (Note that if there are lines or connectors included in your selection, they won't change!)

- Remember to use connectors whenever possible instead of drawing lines. Connectors automatically move with your shapes and connect perfectly to automatic anchor points, so that you never have overlapping lines or objects that don't quite connect. ... If you use connectors, keep in mind that you can always just right-click on a connector to change the connector type.

Tip: If you are creating an organizational chart or flowchart from AutoShapes, start by creating just one shape -- pick the one that will have the most content so that you can select the font size and formatting that will work for all shapes in that flowchart. Size and format that one shape completely before you copy it -- then duplicate it to create your other shapes. (If you're creating an organizational chart -- you'll also want to duplicate that first shape as many times as you'll need for the row that will contain the most shapes across -- then distribute them horizontally using the Align Or Distribute feature on the Draw menu, to make sure that the size you select for your shapes will work for everything before you duplicate and start laying out the entire chart. When you work methodically like this and plan out creating your graphic, you'll save a tremendous amount of time and get better results every time!

Finally, once you have your diagram, flowchart, or other graphic created in PowerPoint -- it's a snap to get it snugly into Word. Just group it (so that the pieces all stay where you place them), copy it, and in Word -- go to Edit, Paste Special and select Picture (Enhanced Metafile), which is the best picture format quality for Office graphics being pasted into Word (and will be a smaller picture size than, say, a Windows Bitmap). And don't forget to go to Format, Picture, Layout and select Inline With Text once you've pasted the object ... so that you can position and format it just like text.