How to Create Flowcharts in Excel Series -
Grouping Flowchart Shapes
By Nicholas Hebb
Group before Saving
Let's you deal with a flowchart as a single drawing object
After you've completed your flowchart and made sure all the shapes are uniformly sized and aligned, make sure to use the Group function. The Group function takes all the shapes that you have selected and creates a single shape out of them. The easiest way to group objects together is to select them all, then right click over the selection. On the context menu (popup menu), select the Grouping sub-menu then Group:
3 Reasons to Use Group
Alignment, usability, and protection
One, when you close an Microsoft Excel file with a flowchart drawing and re-open it, you'll sometimes find that all the flowchart symbols that you took such great care to line up aren't lined up anymore. The difference is usually slight and hardly noticeable - until you start to edit the flowchart again. Then you'll notice that the flow lines (connectors) between flowchart symbols aren't quite straight anymore. By Grouping before saving, you can just select the entire flowchart as a single item and realign it to the drawing grid in a single step.
Two, when you need to copy the flowchart to another file, such as a Microsoft Word document, working with a Group makes this much easier, since you only have to copy and paste the flowchart as a single item. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint support Group/Ungroup, so if you want to edit the flowchart later, you can still ungroup in the destination application and edit the individual flowchart symbols.
Three, grouping acts as a protection mechanism for the overall layout of your flowchart, so you don't accidentally drag an individual flowchart symbol out of alignment.
Related Articles
Want more useful flowcharting tips? View the list of other flowchart, process map, and process improvement articles here.
About the Author
When he's not writing about flowcharts Nicholas Hebb runs BreezeTree Software, maker of FlowBreeze Flowchart Software - a program that cuts the time to create a flowchart dramatically compared to traditional flowcharting tools. What makes FlowBreeze different?
It converts your text into flowchart symbols based on the words you type, adds a connector from the last shape, and many other time saving features. And, because it's a Microsoft Excel graphics add-in, you will create flow charts that are highly portable and integrate directly with Microsoft Office for easy sharing and collaboration.
Click here to view the On-Line FlowBreeze Flowchart Software Demo and see for yourself. (It's a short, 30 second video that loads fast.) You'll be impressed.
