Add WordArt to a Worksheet

January 15, 2024 - by Bill Jelen

Problem: My spreadsheets are blah. How can I make them more eye-catching?

Strategy: You can create attractive spreadsheets by adding WordArt. Here are three WordArt samples.

To create WordArt, you select Insert, WordArt. The initial dropdown asks you to choose from among the 30 choices shown below. This is a bit perplexing to WordArt veterans. Unlike in Excel 2003, this gallery offers no twisting effects. But you can easily change every effect in the gallery after you create the WordArt.

Choose one of the types, and Excel will insert new WordArt in the center of the visible range. The WordArt starts with a value YOUR TEXT HERE. The WordArt is surrounded by a dashed box, which indicates that the WordArt is in Text Edit mode. You can start typing the text you want to appear as the WordArt.

When most people think of WordArt, they think of the effects available in the WordArt Styles, Effects, Transform menu, which you can use to twist or bend the type to fill a wide variety of shapes. This figure shows some of the available shapes. You do not have to select all the text in the shape to apply a Transform effect.

Earlier in this topic, I estimated that there were 1.78E+53 different varieties of WordArt possible. That estimate does not include the various options available if you change the inflection points in some of the transforms.

Look for a pink diamond handle when the WordArt is selected. By dragging this handle up or down, you can control the amount of slant applied.

Strategy: All text in a chart or in a SmartArt graphic is eligible to be WordArt. You don’t have to do anything special: You just use the WordArt Styles group on the Format tab while editing the SmartArt or chart.

This article is an excerpt from Power Excel With MrExcel

Title photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash