Working with SmartArt Cold Rendering

SmartArt graphics are used to quickly and easily create a visual representation of information. You simply choose from a large number of layouts that best suits your situation. This ease of use makes SmartArt graphics quite popular for some purposes.

Microsoft Word generates and saves the pre-rendered drawing along with the SmartArt object. In most cases, the pre-rendered drawing is rendered well by Aspose.Words and no additional actions are required. However, if the document is saved by other applications, the pre-rendered SmartArt drawing may be missing or incorrect. In this case, the SmartArt object itself should be laid-out and rendered using Aspose.Words. We call this process the SmartArt Cold Rendering.

Using SmartArt Cold Rendering

Aspose.Words allows you to use a pre-rendered drawing or perform cold rendering:

• If a pre-rendered drawing is available, Aspose.Words uses it to render the SmartArt object.
• If pre-rendered drawing is missing, Aspose.Words implicitly performs cold rendering to render the SmartArt object.
• If a pre-rendered drawing is present but is incorrect, it is required to perform SmartArt cold rendering explicitly by calling updateSmartArtDrawing method.

The following code example shows how to update drawings for all diagrams in the document:

Support for Standard SmartArt Layouts

Currently, only a limited number of standard Microsoft Word SmartArt layouts are supported. Also, some of these layouts are supported partially, meaning that significant nodes and shapes of the diagram are rendered, but there may be differences between the Microsoft Word and Aspose.Words diagram layout.

The table below lists the fully and partially supported layouts:

SmartArt Layouts Group	Fully supported layouts	Partially supported layouts
List	Basic Block List Alternating Hexagons Vertical Bullet List Vertical Box List Varying Width List Horizontal Bullet List Grouped List Vertical Block List Vertical Chevron List Vertical Arrow List Trapezoid List Table List Pyramid List Target List	Lined List Vertical Bracket List Tab List Stacked List Vertical Accent List Vertical Circle List
Process	Basic Process Accent Process Continuous Block Process Increasing Arrow Process Converging Text Basic Timeline Basic Chevron Process Chevron Accent Process Closed Chevron Process Chevron List Vertical Process Staggered Process Process List Basic Bending Process Repeating Bending Process Detailed Process Upward Arrow Descending Process Circular Bending Process	Step Up Process Step Down Process Alternating Flow Increasing Circle Process Pie Process Interconnected Block Process Process Arrows Circle Accent Timeline Circle Process Sub Step Process Phased Process Random to Result Process Circle Arrow Process
Cycle	–	Segmented Cycle Hexagon Radial
Hierarchy	–	Table Hierarchy Architecture Layout
Relationship	Balance Funnel Gear Plus And Minus Arrow Ribbon Counterbalance Arrows Opposing Arrows Nested Target Basic Target Basic Pie Basic Venn Stacked Venn Interconnected Ring	Circle Relationship Opposing Ideas Equation Vertical Equation Linear Venn
Matrix	Basic Matrix Titled Matrix Grid Matrix Cycle Matrix	–
Pyramid	–	Segmented Pyramid

Comparison of SmartArt Rendering in Aspose.Words and Microsoft

The table below shows example pictures of Aspose.Words Cold Rendering of some standard layouts compared to Microsoft Word output:

	Aspose.Words	Microsoft Word
Basic Process
Circular Bending Process
Repeating Bending Process
Trapezoid List

---

FAQ

1. Q: What is SmartArt Cold Rendering in Aspose.Words for Node.js?
   A: Cold Rendering is the process where Aspose.Words lays out and renders a SmartArt diagram itself when the pre‑rendered drawing stored in the document is missing or incorrect. This ensures the diagram appears correctly even if the source file did not contain a valid drawing.

2. Q: How can I force Aspose.Words to re‑render a SmartArt diagram that has an incorrect pre‑rendered drawing?
   A: Call the Shape.updateSmartArtDrawing() method on each SmartArt shape. This explicitly triggers cold rendering for that diagram, replacing the faulty drawing with a newly generated one.

3. Q: Which method updates the SmartArt drawing programmatically?
   A: The method is Shape.updateSmartArtDrawing(). It is available on the Shape class that represents a SmartArt object.

4. Q: Which SmartArt layout groups are fully supported by Aspose.Words?
   A: Fully supported groups include List, Process, Matrix, and Relationship layouts. The documentation lists the exact layouts within each group that render completely.

5. Q: How can I determine whether a SmartArt diagram was rendered using cold rendering?
   A: After loading the document, inspect the Shape object’s IsSmartArt property and compare the rendered appearance with the original. If the pre‑rendered drawing is missing or you have called updateSmartArtDrawing(), the diagram has been cold‑rendered.