How to quickly make a good quality flowchart
October 8, 2010 9:00 AM Subscribe
Any recommendations for flowchart software?
I'm looking for flowcharting software to develop a large business orientated flowchart. It must:
-Be windows compatible.
-Not require me to spend a disproportionate amount of time making the final chart look neat. (I have Word, Powerpoint and Excel and I seem to spend more time re-sizing arrows and text boxes.)
-Final output must be transferable to Word.
-Final chart would be editable in Word or Excel (ideally).
-I should be able to put hyperlinks in the text boxes.
-Also, web based would be a huge bonus.
-Easy to use.
Cheers.
I'm looking for flowcharting software to develop a large business orientated flowchart. It must:
-Be windows compatible.
-Not require me to spend a disproportionate amount of time making the final chart look neat. (I have Word, Powerpoint and Excel and I seem to spend more time re-sizing arrows and text boxes.)
-Final output must be transferable to Word.
-Final chart would be editable in Word or Excel (ideally).
-I should be able to put hyperlinks in the text boxes.
-Also, web based would be a huge bonus.
-Easy to use.
Cheers.
Also recommending Visio. I use it for flow charts, data model diagrams, system/software topologies etc. Whenever I need to include these in a Word document, I can copy and paste easily.
posted by vilandra at 9:23 AM on October 8, 2010
posted by vilandra at 9:23 AM on October 8, 2010
There's a lot of overlap between mind-mapping software and flowchart software. Visio is pretty good for offline working, though I prefer mindjet mindmapper. Neither are cheap.
Gliffy is a free online service that's rather visio like (including flowcharts); mindmeister and bubbl.us are more of the classic mind-mapper bubble charts type, but can be used for flowcharting.
Importing into office in an editable format is going to be your real killer problem with the web-based/cheap solutions; pdf or png are generally your options, which you could embed into word. You can do it with visio or mindjet though, up to a point.
posted by ArkhanJG at 9:49 AM on October 8, 2010
Gliffy is a free online service that's rather visio like (including flowcharts); mindmeister and bubbl.us are more of the classic mind-mapper bubble charts type, but can be used for flowcharting.
Importing into office in an editable format is going to be your real killer problem with the web-based/cheap solutions; pdf or png are generally your options, which you could embed into word. You can do it with visio or mindjet though, up to a point.
posted by ArkhanJG at 9:49 AM on October 8, 2010
I use Gliffy for a web-based alternative to Visio. Final output can be saved as PNG or JPG to be inserted into a Word doc.
posted by MagicEightBall at 9:51 AM on October 8, 2010
posted by MagicEightBall at 9:51 AM on October 8, 2010
Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I'll look tomorrow and decide which best suits my purpose.
posted by verisimilitude at 3:02 PM on October 10, 2010
posted by verisimilitude at 3:02 PM on October 10, 2010
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posted by mrrisotto at 9:02 AM on October 8, 2010 [1 favorite]