Using icons in SmartArt Vertical Picture List

Question

Hello! Hoping someone can help me. I am on a mac and have the newest version of PowerPoint. I am using a SmartArt vertical picture list, and I want to add icons to the image boxes on each line. It seems there are two ways to do this, but I want to do it in a way that automatically formats the icons the same way as the rest of the list and fits the icons within the box rather than clipping them.

The only way that seems to work is the following:

• Select image box and randomly move or hover mouse around until...
• tiny box with lightning bolt appears (design suggestion related?)
• allowing you to choose an icon for the box
• which is then automatically formatted to your SmartArt color scheme

Sometimes the tiny box with the lightning bolt will not appear, ever.

I have also tried going directly to the icon menu while the image box is selected, and inserting an icon. This results in a new image box with a solid black icon (ie it is not formatted like my SmartArt). If I copy this and paste it into the SmartArt image box it places a black icon in the box, and does not adapt the formatting to fit the SmartArt, and it also does not respect the aspect ratio of the box and the icons are often clipped/cropped.

Is there a reliable way to get the tiny lightning bolt box to appear? Or can we consider adding this functionality to the normal 'insert icon' process? I have spent/wasted a ton of time trying to work this out, can anyone help?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hi Cliff -- the insert icon option does not resize the icon or format it consistently with the smart art, so it's not an ideal solution as you can see from the screenshots. Still unclear on how to get this feature to work consistently. All I want to do is use smart art formatting and insert an icon into the picture box, and have the icon automatically colored, formatted, sized etc, to fit in the box. Seems this is doable on PC version but not so much in the mac version. Still hoping for a resolution. -Alys

Answer 2

So, this is what is currently happening when I follow this process of inserting the icon as a stand alone image then pasting.

You'll see the normal icon on the left, and when I paste it doesn't paste the icon, it pastes the last real image on the clipboard. If I go to 'format image' and use clipboard image fill this is what happens. What is pasted into the image placeholder is not formatted to match the list and it is not resized to fit but weirdly stretched and cropped, and there is no way to adjust it.

Any ideas?

Answer 3

AFAIK, the lightning bolt indicates an animation trigger has been applied to the object:

You can use the Insert image tool to upload a screenshot:

The graphic frames in SmartArt are picture placeholders. Their normal action is to crop the photo or graphic placed in them. You might have to add white space around your icons to compensate for that.

Answer 4

I would like to update this and say that copy and cut do not seem to reliably grab the icon to allow me to paste it :( This should be so simple and it's just so silly that it has been so complicated. Just put an icon in a box, powerpoint!

Answer 5

UPDATE: Definitely not working in a new smart art list. WHY. I'm not on windows of course, so any windows instructions don't really help me. Is there a way to encourage Microsoft to modify this functionality?

OP: Thank you! This seems to have done it. However I will note that you definitely have to "cut" to get the clipboard to grab the icon. "Copy" won't do it. Even with "cut" I had to do it a couple of times in one instance.

I think initially the "design ideas" feature asked me if I wanted to put an icon in the box, and so I didn't make the connection between having an icon in the box and the ability to summon the icon list with the lightning bolt/box thing in the screenshot.