SmartArt With Icons from PowerPoint Designer in PowerPoint 365 for Windows
Learn how you can change bulleted text to SmartArt graphics with icons in PowerPoint 365 for Windows. This technique is both easy and powerful, and can be achieved with a few clicks.
Author:Geetesh Bajaj
Product/Version: PowerPoint 365 for Windows
OS: Microsoft Windows 8 and higher
PowerPoint Designer is an amazing feature in PowerPoint 365 for Windows that lets you quickly
change how your slides are formatted so that you can present them confidently. But did you know that PowerPoint Designer's features go even further? For example, you
can change a bulleted list to a SmartArt graphic, complete with icons. These icons can then be changed, and you can also edit the SmartArt graphic itself with a few
clicks.
Follow these steps to change a bulleted list to a SmartArt graphic with icons in PowerPoint 365 for
Windows:
Create a bulleted slide that has first-level bullets that are either single words or small terms, as shown in Figure 1, below.
Figure 1: Bulleted list with first-level bullets
Now add a description for each bullet with a second-level bullet, as shown in Figure 2, below. Yes, this slide looks like what many
users will call a Death by PowerPoint slide. That's not a problem because we will use
PowerPoint Designer to change the appearance of the slide to something much better in the next, few steps.
Figure 2: Bulleted list with first and second-level bullets
Now, with your slide, as shown in Figure 2, above active, you should see the Design IdeasTask Pane, as shown in Figure 3, below.
Figure 3: Options within the Design Ideas Task Pane
No Design Ideas Task Pane?
Is there no Design Ideas Task Pane? You can summon the Pane by accessing either the Home or
Design tabs of the Ribbon, and then clicking the
Design Ideas button, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 4, below.
At least one of the options in the Design Ideas Task Pane will be a SmartArt graphic with icons, as shown highlighted in
red within Figure 3, previously on this page. We clicked on this option to apply it to our slide, and you can see
the resulting slide in Figure 5, below.
Figure 5: Bulleted list is changed to a SmartArt graphic with icons
While you may be happy with the icons that PowerPoint has chosen for you, you can change them to something else too. To do so, click any icon, and
you will see a Replace Your Icon Smart Tag on hovering, as shown highlighted in red within Figure 6,
below.
Figure 6: Replace your icon
Clicking this Smart Tag brings up some suggestions as shown in Figure 7, below. You can accept any of them, or you can also click the
See all icons option, highlighted in red within Figure 7, below.
Figure 7: See all icons
Clicking the See all icons option brings up the Insert Icons dialog box you can see in Figure 8,
below. Since you get many icons in this dialog box, you can choose the Search box to enter a keyword, shown highlighted in
red within Figure 8.
Figure 8: Insert icons dialog box
You can next select the icon you want to use, shown highlighted in blue within Figure 8, and
then click the Insert button, highlighted in green within Figure 8.
You can see the changed icon in Figure 9, below.
Figure 9: Changed icon
Since the finished content is a SmartArt graphic, you can do any formatting that you would apply to SmartArt. Tutorials for these techniques can be
found in our SmartArt graphics page.
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