Flow Charts by SmartDraw

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WHAT IS A FLOWCHART? A flowchart illustrates the steps in a process. By visualizing the process, a flowchart can quickly help identify bottlenecks or inefficiencies where the process can be streamlined or improved. Example: Two Flowcharts for a Common Process Suppose your research revealed that you always want fries and a drink with your burger. You decide to streamline your process by ordering the combo meal, which automatically includes fries and a drink. The two flowcharts show at a glance that you omit two decisions and two order steps by using the streamlined order process.

BASIC FLOWCHARTING SHAPES AND SYMBOLS Flowcharts use special shapes to represent different types of actions or steps in a process. Lines and arrows show the sequence of the steps, and the relationships among them.

Start/End The terminator symbol marks the starting or ending point of the system. It usually contains the word "Start" or "End."

Action or Process A box can represent a single step ("add two cups of flour"), or and entire sub-process ("make bread") within a larger process.

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Document A printed document or report.

Decision A decision or branching point. Lines representing different decisions emerge from different points of the diamond.

Input/Output Represents material or information entering or leaving the system, such as customer order (input) or a product (output).

Connector Indicates that the flow continues where a matching symbol (containing the same letter) has been placed.

Flow Line Lines indicate the sequence of steps and the direction of flow.

Delay Indicates a delay in the process.

Merge Indicates a step where two or more sub-lists or sub-processes become one.

Collate Indicates a step that orders information into a standard format.

Sort Indicates a step that organizes a list of items into a sequence or sets based on some pre-determined criteria.

Subroutine Indicates a sequence of actions that perform a specific task embedded within a larger process. This sequence of actions could be described in more detail on a separate flowchart.

Manual Loop Indicates a sequence of commands that will continue to repeat until stopped manually.

Loop Limit Indicates the point at which a loop should stop.

Data storage Indicates a step where data gets stored.

Database Indicates a list of information with a standard structure




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that allows for searching and sorting.

Display Indicates a step that displays information.

Off Page Indicates that the process continues off page

Basic Flowchart A basic flowchart identifies the starting and ending points of a process, the sequence of actions in the process, and the decision or branching points along the way.




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HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS

Drawing with SmartDraw

SmartDraw is designed to help you draw flowcharts quickly and easily. In fact, SmartDraw has done half the work for you by providing you with hundreds of ready-made flowchart symbols and templates!

Browse through these eye-catchingcool examples of flowcharts

—all created with SmartDraw

Opening a Template

The easiest way to draw a new flowchart is by starting with a SmartDraw template. Both the SmartDraw Flowchart Edition and the SmartDraw Suite come with hundreds of flowchart examples you can access through the New Drawing dialog. Simply click on the New Drawing button on the toolbar or choose New from the File menu, then select from the vast array of flowchart examples available at your fingertips under the Flowchart

category. Templates and examples listed under this category have all the special settings for grid snaps, line- and shape-linking, wizards, and other crucial attributes that make it easy to draw a flowchart. You can start with an example that closely resembles your project or you can start with a blank page by choosing Empty. To choose a template, double-click on it or click on it and press the OK button.

Drag-and-Drop Shapes




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If you started with a blank flowchart template, you should see a library of flowchart symbols docked at the top of your work area and the Flowchart Wizard open in the left panel. To draw, you can simply drag shapes from the docked Flowchart library and drop them in your drawing area.

Drag-and-drop shapes from the docked Flowchart library

You can also access most flowchart shapes straight from the toolbar. Choose between a simple rectangle for a process, a diamond for a decision, a circle for a connector, and more. Click on the arrow next to the currently selected shape to choose another, then simple drag-and-drop the selected shape to the page. Note: If you don't see a flowchart library docked in your work area, click on the Symbols tab in the left panel to browse your SmartDraw Explorer for the appropriate symbols. You'll also find additional flowcharting symbols with professionally-designed styles and more.

HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd)

Connecting Your Shapes with Lines

SmartDraw makes it easy to connect your flowchart shapes with lines. To start, simply select the Straight Line Tool on the toolbar by clicking on it once. Now your cursor looks like a pencil.

Touch the pencil to the edge of one shape and click down with the mouse (you'll see black dots on the edge of the shape). Drag the pencil to the edge of another shape, and release when you see the Anchor Symbol.

Start drawing the line from the edge of the first shape




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And anchor the line to the edge of the second shape

The black dots are Connection Points. These points mark the places where a shape can be attached to a line or another shape. When you see Connection Points, you know your shape is ready to be attached to something. The Anchor Symbol appears when a line is anchored to the edge of a shape.

Once connected, lines and shapes stay connected, even if they are moved or stretched.

To detach a line, click on it and drag one of its endpoints away from the shape.

Drag one of the endpoints of a line away from the shape to detach it

Different Types of Lines You can also connect your flowchart shapes with other types of lines. The Arc draws a section of a circle of any size and curvature.

The Segmented Line—both straight and curved—attaches itself perpendicularly to your shapes, and it travels between them using the fewest possible segments and 90-degree turns. To convert a line into any other type, you can use the Change Line Shape command under the Lines menu.

Line Hops




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For the sake of clarity, you should avoid crossi

ng flow lines in your chart when possible. You can usually get rid of any crossed lines by rearranging your chart. However, if you find that two

lines must cross, you can use a "line hop" or "bridge" to show that the lines don't really intersect. You can create a line hop in SmartDraw by right-clicking on a line to bring up the Line Hops dialog. In the Line Hops dialog, click on "Show" to turn on line hops for your entire drawing. (Note: If you ever need to, you can always turn off a line hop for any selected individual line from this dialog by unchecking the last check box.) Next, you can specify a style (round or square) and size (small, medium, or large) for your line hops.

A line hop

Working with Auto Flow Using SmartDraw's Auto Flow Lines to connect shapes, you can create flowcharts even more efficiently. An Auto Flow Line as its name suggests connects any shape you drag to the page with the last shape on your drawing, eliminating the need to draw connecting lines separately. You can turn on these lines from the Add Lines tab of the Flowchart Wizard in the left panel.




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Adding Arrowheads to Your Lines To signify the direction of flow, you can easily add arrowheads to your flow lines in SmartDraw. Just select any line in your drawing (by clicking on it), then choose Arrowheads from the Lines menu. Next, select an arrowhead style and SmartDraw will automatically add it to your line — and to any future lines in your drawing! (Unless you change the setting again)

HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Entering Text into Your Shapes

To add text to a shape, simply select the shape (by clicking on its border) and start typing. It's that easy!

SmartDraw shapes are designed to automatically contain your text and carry it with them wherever they go. They also control the size of the text, to keep it from spilling out of the shape. If you enter more text than will fit in the shape, the text will start to shrink to accommodate more.

Adjusting Text Entry Properties By changing the Text Entry Properties under the Shapes menu, you can specify the minimum size your text can shrink to and tell SmartDraw how to grow your shapes to accommodate additional text.




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Editing Text To modify a piece of existing text, double-click on it to enter editing mode. All the standard Windows editing conventions apply: dragging the mouse selects text; selected text can be cut, deleted, or copied; the font, size, style and color of the selected text can be changed using commands in the Text menu or on the toolbar.

Use the commands on the toolbar for quick and easy editing

You can also create independent text objects on the page—ones not contained inside any shape. Simply click on the Text Tool on the toolbar and type anywhere on the page. Once done writing, you can move,

rotate, and edit this text object just like any other shape.

Changing the color of a selected text object

HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Changing the Appearance of Your Shapes By default, flowchart shapes will appear to be black and white. However, it's easy to add a splash of color and style to your flowchart by using the commands available on the toolbar and in the Shapes menu.

Changing a Shape's Fill Color




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To change the fill color of a shape, simply select it, click

on the Fill Color button on the toolbar, and choose a color from the drop down list that appears (you can also use the Fill Color command from the Shapes menu). You can choose a color from SmartDraw's default palette, set your fill to be transparent, or click on More Colors to choose from any of the 16 million colors supported by Windows. You can also choose a gradient as your fill color by clicking on Gradient Fill. You'll be able to choose from hundreds of professionally designed color combinations or you can create your own gradient. Once a color is set, it will become the default fill color of any new shape added to the drawing afterward.

Shading and Textures To fill your shape with a pattern, choose the Shading command under the Shapes menu. You can even choose from a variety of photographic texture patterns as your fill.

Changing Border Color and Style




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Each shape has a border around its edge. This can be dotted, dashed, or solid, or double-lined, in a choice of several different thicknesses. To set the style and thickness of a border, use the commands in for Border Style, Border Thickness, and Border Color located in the Shapes menu. You can also set the border color using the Line and Border Color tool on the toolbar.

Set the border color from the toolbaror from the Shapes menu

Changing the Size of a Shape You can resize any shape using the black Adjustment Handles located along its border. Just click on any handle and drag it to stretch the object. Resizing a process box




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Rotating a Shape A selected object also has a circular Rotation Handle. By dragging the rotation handle, a shape or line can be rotated to any angle.

HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Arranging Objects SmartDraw helps keep your shapes aligned by snapping them to an invisible grid that lies behind the drawing area. But frequently, you'll want to adjust or reposition your shapes, and SmartDraw helps you do that with several alignment tools. First, select the objects you want to arrange. Do this by clicking on each object in turn (while holding down the Shift key).

The last object you click on will have black selection handles signifying that it's the Target Object. When you use the Align or Make Same Size commands (under the Arrange menu), all the selected objects will be aligned or sized to match the target object. When you choose the Space Evenly command, the objects at each end of the series stay fixed, and the others will be spaced evenly between them.

The results after using Align, Make Same Size, and Space Evenly

Making Fine Adjustments in Position




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To move any line or object in the smallest possible increment (1 pixel at a time) select the object you want to move, and nudge it using the arrow keys. This technique is much more precise than moving objects with the mouse.

To correct a crooked connecting line, the shape on the right is nudged upward using the arrow keys

Stylish Flowcharts in a Single Click You can instantly make your flowchart look polished and professional by choosing one of the ready-made SmartDraw color schemes as a way to complete your diagram. To apply a uniform style, just choose Colors and Shadows from the View menu and select one of the professionally designed styles. Your whole drawing will be instantly converted to the new style.

HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Using Automatic Connectors for Flowcharts If you want to show multiple outcomes under a decision point, you can use SmartDraw's intelligent Automatic Connector lines. These lines can automatically connects several shapes in evenly spaced patterns.




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The horizontal line in the flowchart above is an automatic connector It automatically arranges the four shapes attached to it Drawing an Automatic Connector

To draw an automatic connector, simply drag and drop a connector line from the toolbar to the page. These lines already have the appropriate shapes attached to them. All you have to do is change the top shape from a process to a decision

symbol. To do so, select it, right-click, then choose the diamond from the Shape command.




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HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Using Tables for Deployment Flowcharts

To show how the steps of a process are divided among various departments or people, you can draw a deployment flowchart. A deployment flowchart consists of a flowchart laid on top of a table, where each column

represents a person or a department involved in the process.

The first step to drawing a deployment flowchart is to draw a table.

You can create a new table by clicking on the Table button on the toolbar or by selecting Add New Table from the Table menu.

Formatting Your Table You can set the number of rows and columns in your table with the Format command under the Table menu. (SmartDraw will present this dialog box when you create your new table.) For a deployment flowchart, you should have two rows and




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as many columns as you have departments.

Once your table is ready, move your cursor over the bottom grid line until you see the grid line selection cursor, click on the grid line to select it, and drag it downwards to stretch the table to an appropriate length.

Enter the name of one department or person at the head of each column. You can also change the color, shading, and grid line thickness using the commands in the Table menu. Adding Flowchart Shapes Once your table is laid out, you can start adding flowchart shapes as you would for any other flowchart. Note: By default, your shapes will lie on

top of the table, not actually inside the cells. If you move or adjust your table, you will also have to readjust the shapes separately. Adding Text to Shapes Before you try to enter any text into the shapes, select the table, and under Text Entry Properties in the Shapes menu, turn off text editing in the table. This helps avoid conflicts between the shapes and the table cells.




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By forbidding text editing in the table, you can work with the

flowchart shapes more easily Tips for Effective Flowcharts

1) Label each flowchart with a title identifying the process that it illustrates. (For example: "Order Entry

Process"). 2) Clearly

indicate the starting and ending points of the process, using the standard terminator symbols. 3) Keep the direction of flow consistent. Avoid confusion by keeping your flow lines moving

from top to bottom and left to right. Don't reverse the direction in the chart unless the flow reverses itself in reality. 4) Break the steps down to a consistent level of detail. Don't include trivial sub-steps of one task while treating another equivalent task as a whole. If one step or task needs to be analyzed in detail, make a separate chart illustrating that sub-process. (In SmartDraw, you can hyperlink the shape representing a sub-process to the chart that illustrates it, allowing users to "drill down" for more detail.) 5) Avoid crossing flow lines. In a well-designed chart, flow lines will not cross each other. By rearranging a chart you can usually get rid of crossed lines. If two lines must cross, use a "bridge" (also known as a "line hop") to show that the lines do not intersect. Learn how to add a line hop to your flowchart in SmartDraw 6) Make sure there are at least two outcomes from every decision diamond. 7) Label your flowchart components. Use active verbs to label




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activity steps and questions to label decisions. Clearly label the outcomes from a decision diamond in terms that answer the question.

Continue reading to learn how you can insert your flowcharts into any MS Office document WORKING WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE

Windows programs, especially Microsoft Office software such as Word® and PowerPoint®. You can quickly add professional diagrams to your memos and eye-catching charts to your presentations! Go ahead! Impress your colleagues and boss with graphic design skills you didn't even know you had!

"Copy to ____" Button The easiest way to transfer a SmartDraw drawing into another office program is to simply click on one of the Office toolbar buttons at the top left of the SmartDraw toolbar. Choose Word, Excel, or Powerpoint! The button will open the selected program for you—if you don't have it running already—and copy-paste your entire drawing. It's that simple! her program using Ctrl+V or Paste under the Edit menu.

Editing the Embedded Drawing When you paste your drawing into another program you are actually embedding it. This means that the image in the other program is not just a simple picture of the SmartDraw drawing. The other program remembers that

the drawing came from SmartDraw and allows you to edit and




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update the drawing within SmartDraw. So to edit a SmartDraw drawing in another program, simply double-click on the drawing or go to the Edit menu and choose SmartDraw Object and Edit.

Update the Drawing When you are done, go to the File menu inside SmartDraw and choose Update Document. This will transfer the changes you made back to the drawing in wherever it is embedded.

Dragging and Dropping into Other Programs You can also drag and drop your drawing into most other office programs. (Unless you hold down the Ctrl key while doing this, the selection will be deleted from the SmartDraw document and transferred to the other program.)

Paste Special Another way to transfer a SmartDraw drawing to another Windows program is to paste an OLE Link using the other program's Paste Special command under the Edit menu. Because Paste Special creates a link between the other program and the original SmartDraw file, any changes you make to the original

SmartDraw drawing will automatically appear in the drawing pasted elsewhere. To use Paste Special, first save the drawing in SmartDraw (pasting a link will not work if the file is not saved first), then select and copy your SmartDraw drawing. In the other program, under Paste Special select Paste Link.

About OLE Linking




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OLE linking creates a shortcut between the drawing in another program and the original SmartDraw file. When you simply copied-and-pasted (embedded) the drawing, the pther program only remembered that the drawing came from SmartDraw but not the particular file it came from. When you paste a link to the actual SmartDraw file, any changes to the original drawing will be automatically reflected in the linked drawing. This feature can be a real time-saver if you need to use a single SmartDraw drawing in many different Office documents. For example, let's say you want to always keep an updated version of your flowchart in three different corporate documents simultaneously: a Word document, a PowerPoint presentation, and an Excel spreadsheet. You need not update all three documents. Just update the linked SmartDraw drawing, and the documents will all automatically update themselves!

Continue to reading to see how you can add photos to your flowcharts ADD PHOTOS TO YOUR FLOWCHARTS

With the SmartDraw Image Plug-In (FREE with the SmartDraw Suite), you can insert and edit digital images from right inside SmartDraw and create eye-catching charts and diagrams. How Can Photos Enhance a Diagram? Photos can transform an abstract diagram into concrete communication. Imagine your next flowchart with stylish photographs illustrating a complicated process instead of just abstract symbols. Just take a look at these cool examples

Create professional-looking diagrams using

photos and graphics




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other users have created using the Image Plug-In.

Inserting a Photo into a Flowchart

To add a photo to your diagram, first click the SmartDraw Image Plug-In button on your SmartDraw toolbar

to launch the Image Plug-In in a separate window. Browse and insert photos using the Image Plug-In's intuitive browsing and organizing tools, then return to SmartDraw by closing your chosen photo.

Click on the SmartDraw Image Plug-In button in

SmartDraw to launch the Image

Plug-In

Browsing with the Image Plug-In




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Let's begin by inserting a photo using the SmartDraw Image Plug-In button . Click on the SmartDraw Image Plug-In button to open the Image Plug-In in a separate window. You can now use the Image Plug-In's Explorer to browse and open the photo that you want to insert into your SmartDraw drawing. Browsing in the Image Plug-In is very similar to browsing the symbol libraries in the SmartDraw Explorer. The Explorer displays the file system on your computer in a familiar Windows tree format. You can browse your system for images by clicking on the plus sign next to folders to expand them and the minus sign to collapse them.

Browse through your albums and photos

with the help of previews

The Image Plug-In automatically treats folders that contain images as Albums (marked with a green plug-in icon ). To see a preview of any album, just move your cursor over it. You'll see a small sheet of thumbnails representing the images contained inside. Along the same lines, placing your cursor over any individual image will also pop up an image preview. These previews allow you to




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browse through your images without opening every file.

Searching for Photos To look for a specific image, type a keyword into the search bar at the top of the explorer tree. The search results will be marked with a pair of binoculars and the name of the images found will be highlighted in bold type.

Photos on your system are automatically

organized into albums. Album windows can float above your work area or you can dock

them anywhere on your screen

Look for images using keywords

Opening an Image To open an image, double-click on it either in the Image Explorer or within the album. You can also simply drag and drop the image to the work area.

Double-click on an image to open it or just




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drag-and-drop it into the work area

Returning to SmartDraw To return to SmartDraw, just close the Image Plug-In and your chosen photo will be automatically inserted into your SmartDraw drawing. Note: The inserted photo is not linked to your original file, so modifying it won't modify the original photo.

To return to your SmartDraw diagram, just close the chosen

photo in the Image Plug-In

Editing Photos from Inside SmartDraw




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Does your inserted photo need adjusting? Is it crooked? Or perhaps it's too dark or too big? The SmartDraw Image Plug-In also allows you to rotate, crop, remove red-eye, fix blemishes, and more from right inside SmartDraw. Simply double-click on any photo to open it in the Image Plug-In. Now, you can edit it using all the intuitive photo editing tools and wizards available at

your fingertips. When you close the edited photo in the SmartDraw Image Plug-In, your photo will be automatically updated inside SmartDraw.

Working with the Photo Wizard The Image Plug-In's Photo Wizard—located on the right hand side of your work area—gives you easy access to the tools you’ll use to touch up your digital photos and graphics. Click on any button in this panel and the Wizard will walk you though your task in just a few easy steps. Using the Wizard, you can quickly rotate, crop, adjust exposure and color, touch up blemishes, apply special effects, and much more.

Edit photos with the

Image Plug-In's easy-to-use Photo

Wizard




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Flowchart Types Different kinds of processes lend themselves to different types of flowcharts. Continue through the next pages for some examples HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Opportunity Flowchart: Installing Software An opportunity flowchart divides the process into "Value Added" and "Cost Added" components — or into steps that occur when things go right, versus those that occur when things go wrong.




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HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Deployment Flowchart: Restaurant Service A deployment flowchart shows how the steps of a process are divided among different departments or agents.




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HOW TO DRAW FLOWCHARTS (cont'd) Process Flowchart: Taking a Telephone Order




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Documents

Flow Charts by SmartDraw