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Highlight (callout, focus) a specific part of the whole? Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Hi, a new user here. I'm running version 3 which came preinstalled on my PowerBook. I've just started using it for a project at work, drawing a business process flowchart. I now need to drop the flowchart into a PowerPoint presentation. I've exported the flowchart as a JPG file, and that works fine. I'll use the presentation to step management through the process, highlighting roles, responsibilities, objectives, etc.

What I'd like to do is highlight specific portions of the flowchart, to use as a visual guide to highlight the specific task(s) covered on each of the presentation slides. That is, I'd like to include a small image on each slide, with the specific portion of the process being covered highlighted.

Is there a way to do this in OmniGraffle, either the version I have or the latest version (standard or pro)? For example, shade or soft-focus all but a selected portion of the diagram? Enlarge a selected portion? Some way to draw focus to a specific portion, yet in context of the whole flowchart?

I could probably do this externally to OmniGraffle, using a graphics editor of some sort. But I thought I'd ask here first, to see if it can be done within the app itself. I tried searching the forum, but didn't find anything using the search terms I came up with.

Thanks in advance!
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big-G
What I'd like to do is highlight specific portions of the flowchart, to use as a visual guide to highlight the specific task(s) covered on each of the presentation slides. That is, I'd like to include a small image on each slide, with the specific portion of the process being covered highlighted.
Thanks in advance!
What about duplicating the canvas and on the new canvas: overlay the whole graphic (to presentation screen size?) with a borderless box filled with some colour with the opacity cut down to 25% or whatever suits you best; draw another shape over the area that you want exposed with no fill; use "edit > shapes > subtract shapes" to make that a cut-out in the overlay.
If you can't do that in your version of OG, build up the mask out of borderless rectangles with the same fill--turn off shadow in the inspector-- and then group them all.
Do that for each of the points in the flowchart that you want to highlight in turn. If you use the latter way, you can ungroup the rectangles, re-position and re-size them for each point in turn; if you use the former, keep the basic overlay and the cut-out shape un-subtracted on another document so that you can copy the two over to each canvas in turn, align the cut-out and then subtract.
Best of all: invest in a copy of OG 4 Pro, put it all together and do the presentation through that ... save you having to slum it in PowerPoint! :cool:
HTH
Mark
 
Hi Mark,

Thanks for the suggestion... I believe that will work just fine for what I want to do! :)

Not sure if my version will do this or not, but I've already made up my mind to upgrade. I've had the PowerBook a year now, but have just started using OmniGraffle. I really like it, and the new features look useful. Wish I could do the whole presentation in OmniGraffle, but I'm stuck using Windows for work. :( Fortunately, I'm a mobile employee, working from my home office, so I have my Mac right here and can use it to quickly create something like a process flowchart that would take me two to three times (at least!) longer using a Windows app.

Thanks again for the solution! I'll give it a go in the morning. (Was stuck on conference calls all day today.)

Thanks,
Gary
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big-G
<snip> Wish I could do the whole presentation in OmniGraffle, but I'm stuck using Windows for work.<snip>
Couldn't you take your PowerBook in with you and do your presentation from that? :)

Mark
 
 


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