Elbow Connectors in PowerPoint 2007

[Gil]

I was wondering if someone knows of a workaround for the following problem
with PowerPoint 2007:

If you place two autoshape rectangles so that one is on the left of the
other and then you put an elbow connector from the left side of the one on
the right to the left side of the one on the left, the connector goes around
the left rectangle. This is good.

If instead of the left rectangle, you use some of the other shapes, for
example the vertical scroll auotshape or a freeform, then the connector goes
through (!) the shape.

Of course you can manually adjust the conector, but then if you move
something, it goes right back through the shape.

The same problem also occurs with curved connectors.

Any suggestions?

 

[John Wilson]

You could try this (not perfect)

Selct each scroll and convert to freeform (Format >Edit Shape)
Right click > Edit points and then add a point at the proposed attachment
points.
You should be able to control the connectors with the yellow handles. It's
not a perfect answer as you'll see if you move the shapes but it may help

 

[John Wilson]

Sorry

I think I misunderstood the ?

 

[Gil]

The same problem happens with freeforms so that does not really improve the
situation (except that I can add my own connection sites - but that is not
the issue) as it still routes through the shape.

Regardless of whether it is a scroll or a freeform, I can manually position
the connector as needed (might have to cut & paste a different one so as to
have enough yellow handles), but as you said, once something is moved I have
to go through the whole process again.

I was hoping for a better solution/workaround....

Thanks for your reply.

Gil

 

[Lucy Thomson]

I can repo here. I hadn't seen that one before - it's rubbish! I thought I
had been all clever as the connector stays going around the object if you
change it from a rectangle to a scroll, but it turns out that it actually
disconnects the connector and when you reconnect, boom, it goes through the
shape again. :-(

I haven't installed SP2 yet (I need to deal with my massive .pst file first
apparently) so if anyone has, can they confirm that this is still an issue
and we can report it?

Lucy

 

[Gil]

It definitely happens in both SP1 and SP2. I think it also happened in the
base PowerPoint 2007.

Note that it also happens with freeforms which means the ability to add your
own connection sites is seriously hampered.

Gil

 

[wodarczy]

I have a work around that seems to work. Sorry for the post to an old thread, but I was searching for the same solution recently and came up with this as my best alternative to a real fix.

On top of the shape that you are connecting to, draw a new rectangle where the middle of an edge is where you want your connection point on the original shape to be.

Next, change the new rectangle to "no fill" and "no edge" so that it is invisible. You can optionally move it "backwards" to be behind the shape that you really want to connect to.

Select both the original shape and the new rectangle and "group" them into a single object.

Now draw your elbow connector and connect it to the new (invisible) edge of the new rectangle that you created.

Since you are connecting to the middle of the edge, the routing should work better. If the routing goes through where you don't want it to, try making the new invisible rectangle larger to block more area.

This seems to work on powerpoint and on gliffy. On Gliffy, I often make the retcangle 1x1 pixels, but then I have to be careful about which side of the rectangle I connect to as it influences the direction that the end of my line takes.