[SmartArt] Discrepancy between GUI and shape information stored in 'diagram1.xml'

Question

Hi all, 

With the introduction of Office 2007 SP2, SmartArt now has a shape tree description saved (in a file called 'diagram*.xml') along with its normal data. I am using this shape tree to render SmartArt, which works fine except for some seeming discrepancies between what's saved and what the PowerPoint GUI displays. 

An example that illustrates one of the discrepancies is the SmartArt "Trapezoid List". If you create a stock Trapezoid List SmartArt object in the GUI and add text to each of the shapes, the text is oriented horizontally. If you click on the individual shapes, you'll notice that they are rotated. 

Now, if you save this file and look at the shape tree generated for this SmartArt object, you'll notice that the shapes are saved as 'flowChartManualOperation' shapes that are rotated 270 degrees. However, the text for each shape is specified as being horizontally oriented (i.e. the "vert" attribute of 'bodyPr' is set to "horz"), and the text's associated 'txXfrm' tag specifies that the text should also be rotated 270 degrees. If you take this shape description and place it in a normal slide, the text is rendered vertically, from bottom to top. This does not match what is rendered for the SmartArt. 

I have looked through the data and layout for this SmartArt object (and others that exhibit similar problems), and I haven't seen anything to explain this mismatch. I was wondering if anyone could shed some insight on how to resolve this problem. Did I miss a detail somewhere? 

Thanks for the help! 
fwdev

Answer 1

Hello fwdev,

Thank you for your question.  I will investigate this issue and update you as soon as I have more information.

Regards,
Mark Miller
Escalation Engineer

US-CSS DSC PROTOCOL TEAM

Answer 2

Hi fwdev, 

For reference, the XML constructs used to create SmartArt are described in both ECMA-376: Part 4, Section 5.9 as well as the new ISO 29500: Part 1, Section 21.4.  We have confirmed the behaviour you observed to be a functional problem with Power Point, not a problem with the corresponding specification.  The functional issue won't be addressed until RTM of the next major release of Office.  If you have further questions about ISO 29500, let me know. 

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Regards, Tom Jebo Senior Support Escalation Engineer Microsoft DS Protocol Team