How to Create Flowcharts in Excel Series -
Creating a Custom Flowchart Toolbar in Microsoft Excel
By Nicholas Hebb
Excel Flowchart Maker
FlowBreeze - a flowchart generator for Excel that makes flowcharts from text. Risk-free, 30-day trial.
Customize the Drawing Toolbar
Default drawing toolbar - not optimizal for flowcharts
The default Microsoft Excel Drawing toolbar is not optimized for flowcharting. To speed up flowcharting, you can customize it to access your favorite drawing functions with a single click.
First, make sure the Drawing toolbar is visible. This can be done by placing the mouse over any toolbar, and right-clicking on the mouse and selecting the toolbar name from the popup menu. Alternately, you can select View > Toolbars > Drawing from the menu. The default Microsoft Excel Drawing toolbar should look something like the picture below:
To customize the toolbar for flowcharts, right-click anywhere on the toolbar and select "Customize". This should bring up the Customize dialog box:
The left-side list contains the Categories and the right-side list contains the Commands that you will add. The two categories that we're concerned with are the Drawing and Autoshapes categories. To add a command to the toolbar, simply click on the command with your mouse and drag it onto the toolbar. To remove a button - do the opposite: select the button on the toolbar and drag it back to the dialog box.
Below is a picture of a toolbar that has been customized for flowcharting, followed by a brief description of each toolbar button. Your preferences may vary, of course.
From left to right, the buttons are as follows:
- Select Objects: Creates a mouse cursor that allows you to select one or more flowchart symbols or other drawing objects.
- Select Multiple Objects: Opens up a form that lets you select all or some of the flowchart symbols at once.
- Group: groups multiple flowchart symbols into one. This is handy for flowchart Decision symbols (diamonds) and the associated text boxes used for branch labels.
- Ungroup: Separates a grouped object back into its constituent components.
- Snap to Grid: Makes flowchart shapes align to the edges of cells when you move or size them.
- Align Center: Aligns flowchart symbols along their vertical centers.
- Align Middle: Aligns flowchart symbols along their horizontal middle.
- Distributed Horizontally: Spaces flowchart symbols an equal distance apart horizontally.
- Distribute Vertically: Spaces flowchart symbols an equal distance apart vertically.
- Rotate (4 buttons): Rotate left, right, flip horizontal, and flip vertical. One use for these is to point an Off-page Connector flowchart symbol in the direction of the referenced page.
- Straight Arrow Connector: A flow line that connects one shape to another in a straight line.
- Elbow Arrow Connector: Adds a elbow arrow connector to the drawing. If 2 flowchart symbols are aligned, this connector will create a straight flow line, so it's more versatile than a straight connector.
- Reroute Connectors: automatically re-routes connectors (flow line). This is very handy after you move flowchart symbolss, especially when used in conjunction with the Select Multiple Objects function.
- Line style: Changes line style from solid to dashed. (Tip: dashed lines indicate parallel or alternate processes).
- Callout: Callouts are used for adding notes or comments to a diagram. There are many different styles of callouts to choose from, but you should just pick one for consistency.
- Change Autoshape: This command is enabled only when a shape is selected. As expected it lets you change the type of the flowchart symbol (aka, Autoshape).
Other useful flowchart-related commands not shown:
- Text Box: Adds a Text Box to your drawing. These are useful for adding branch labels to the flow lines coming out of flowchart Decision symbols.
- Fill Color: Fills the shape with the selected color. This is useful for categorizing different process steps (e.g., by department, person, etc.) or jazzing up a flowchart.
Creating a Flowcharting Shapes Toolbar
For easy access to flowchart shapes, you can select AutoShapes > Flowchart from the Drawing menu. The Flowchart pop-up will appear as shown in the picture to the right. Click on the top of the Flowchart menu and drag it onto the spreadsheet to be a floating toolbar.
You can do the same trick to add a toolbar for callouts and another for flowchart connectors (flow lines). You can then drag the new toolbars to one of the edges to dock them against the side. I prefer putting them on the left edge, similar to the user interface of high-end flowchart programs.
About the Author
Nicholas Hebb is the founder of BreezeTree Software, maker of FlowBreeze Flowchart Software.