14. PowerPoint: Smart Art

The SmartArt diagrams you can add to PowerPoint Web (they’ll be in the Word Web app as well) have almost the same options as the SmartArt tools in the Office 2010 desktop apps. You can pick a diagram and type in your details or you can choose which elements you want and how you want them organized. You can switch to another diagram style, and when you find the right one, you can choose from different combinations of colors and shades and pick several pre-set design styles, including 3D effects on individual elements or the whole diagram.

Bringing this kind of powerful but simple design to a Web app is a big step forward. You don’t get the option to change as many things as in the desktop apps, where you can color individual diagram elements or use a gradient or a picture as a fill, but showing multiple fly-out menus and dialog boxes would be difficult in a Web browser. Microsoft still views the Office Web apps as cut-down tools to use on the road or simpler tools for consumers, but given the success of other basic Web apps, this may be the best approach to take, leaving the fine control for more powerful desktop apps.