How to make flowcharts in PowerPoint

Posted on December 12, 2008 at 5:34 am

With Powerpoint you can create effective presentation materials but most users are not familiar with the fundamentals of creating flowcharts. Flowcharts are good for showing step by step process using different kinds of labeled boxes and arrows.

Below are the steps on how to make a flowchart:

Step 1: Create a new slide where you want to make your chart (right click on the slides tab and then choose “New Slide” on the menu:

Step 2: Enable the grids to guide you on drawing objects. Click View menu then click Grid and Guides:

Check the “Display grid on screen” to enable the grids. Click OK to close the window:

Step 3: Use the AutoShapes menu to access the Flowchart objects:

Choose any flowchart object to draw on the slide. For this tutorial I will start with a “terminator” block as a starting point:

Step 4: Put text inside the boxes to act as labels. Right click on the object then choose “Add Text”:

You can then type any text inside the object:

Step 5: Draw other objects using the steps above. In this example, I put two steps and another terminator block:

Step 6: Connect the objects using connectors:

Remember to always use connectors instead of lines. Connectors are bounded with the objects so they are easier to manage than lines.

You can see from above that even with the boxes are moved, the connectors are still intact.

These steps should get you started with making your own flowcharts. There are many other types of flowchart objects available in the flowchart AutoShapes so make sure to choose the right type of box for each of your operations. You can also edit the look of the items by right clicking them and choosing the “Format AutoShape” menu:

With this window, you can edit the colors, line style, weight of borders, transparency and other cosmetic parameters.

I hope this article will help you impress your colleagues with your own flowcharts.

Ben Carigtan shows you how it’s done.

» Filed Under MS Office Tips

Comments

2 Responses to “How to make flowcharts in PowerPoint”

classact said on : December 14th, 2008 at 8:15 pm

This is a terrific tutorial! I had no idea MS PowerPoint had this capability. Using it will save money that would otherwise have been spent on a standalone flowchart program.