Is there a way to develop custom SmartArt?

Question

Is there a way to develop custom SmartArt for PowerPoint. I'm not looking for a way to develop "fake" smart art, like add a bunch of shapes and then group them and copy/paste between presenations. I'd like to create a number of new SmartArts that are based on this kind of fake SmartArt that my company uses, but have it "smart", like hitting Enter adds another shape with the right colors and text formatting. Has anyone done this before? Thx!

Nonviolence

just wanted to follow up to see if the below answers your question. – Gaby

I believe this task is much more easier in office 2010?? – Pogey

Answer 1

It can be done, but isn't particularly easy. I tried doing this about 2 years ago, had some minor success, and then gave up primarily because of the lack of some kind of WSIWYG tool or object model. It's all hand-entry of XML (functional programming XML no less!)

But the resources I used at the time were:

1. Create a SmartArt graphic - Office 2007
2. SmartArt Developer Reference
3. Creating Custom SmartArt Layouts with Office Open XML for Office 2007 and Office 2010

After I had given up on it, I stumbled upon a website called Loki's Diagrams where he/she had an abundance of custom SmartArt. It was really cool to see someone had succeeded with this.

Gaby

Turns out that Loki had designed the layout engine for SmartArt, giving him a bit of an inside track! See his 'interesting jobs' at the bottom of this page loki3.com/geek/index.html – Morelock