How to Express Opposing Forces Visually in a Word Technical Document

“Opposing Forces” is a fairly common idea both in life and in technical communication.

Hope and Fear oppose each other. They may overlap to a certain extent but their effect is very different.

In the technical field, assuring backward compatibility and keeping the code length to a minimum, for example, cannot be done at the same time.

They are two directives pointing in other directions.

However, let’s note that “opposing forces” are not one and the same as a “dilemma” since with a dilemma both alternatives are worse than the other. If you’ve seen that heart-breaking drama “Sophie’s Choice” you know what I mean. In a dilemma, there are no good choices. In an “opposing forces” situation, there’s usually a better choice that you can select only at the expense of the other alternative.

You can express such an idea very easily and elegantly in MS Word :


Follow these steps:
1) On the ribbon, select the Insert tab.
2) Select Smart Art > Process > Arrow Ribbon graphic option to insert the diagram from the Choose a Smart Art Graphic screen:
(Click top enlarge the image)

3) To format the diagram with different colors or perspective etc., feel free all the formatting options MS Word offers on the ribbon:
(Click top enlarge the image)

4) Click on TEXT placeholder and type in your text into each cycle element.
5) You can try out different types of “opposing forces” graphics as well. You are not limited to the above idea only:

You can all select these different graphic types expressing the same “opposing forces” idea by clicking their respective icon in the Choose a Smart Art Graphic dialog box.