The Flowchart Wizard is a tool that transforms a sheet of text into a flowchart in just a few steps. With it, you can enter all the process steps into worksheet cells and the rough pattern that you want the final flowchart to be in. The Flowchart Wizard will load all the text into a form that lets you assign symbol types, formatting, and flow line routings to each process step. It will then generate a flowchart from that information. You may need to make some minor adjustments to the flowchart layout and flow lines routings, but overall it cuts the time to create a flowchart considerably.

Pre-Layout

Before running the wizard, layout out the text for the flowchart on the sheet. The picture below shows a sample worksheet with the text for the process steps entered into cells. When you enter the process text, the goal is to arrange it roughly how you want the flowchart to be organized.

Picture 1 - Sample Flowchart Text

Running the Flowchart Wizard

Click the Flowchart Wizard button on the toolbar to launch the wizard. The first page of the wizard dialog (shown below) allows to set some preferences for the flowchart.

Text Input: The wizard allows for two types of input - normal and parsed, which allows for advanced control over connector routings. (See Parsing Rules for more detail.)

Ignore Keywords: If checked, all entries will be set to Process symbol types (i.e., rectangles) by default

Direction: Determines whether the connectors are routed between shapes that are top to bottom or left to right.

Uniform Symbol Height: For left to right flowcharts, you can choose to make all the symbols the same height for aesthetical purposes.

Layout: FlowBreeze will automatically add spacing between the generated shapes. However, you can choose to have the flowchart generated so that the shapes are placed in the cells where the existing text is. Note that any shapes which are abutting each other will not have a connector (a.k.a. flow line) created between them.

Output Location: You can choose to output to the existing worksheet or have FlowBreeze generate the flowchart in a new sheet, preserving the original content.

Picture 2 - Wizard Options

When you click Next >, the Flowchart Wizard will display all the entries in Step 2. This step allows you to edit the text, change the symbol type, change the style, and add connectors and branch labels for each entry.

List Columns

#: This column is for reference when setting the Connectors.

Symbol: This column is clickable and allows you to set the symbol type from a drop down list.

Style: This column is clickable and allows you set the style from a drop down list.

Text: This is the text that will be placed into the symbol. If any mistakes were made on the original sheet, they can be corrected here. By default, the first letter will be capitalized when the flowchart is generated.

Styles

Change Style: In addition to the Style column in the grid, you can quickly change styles for all the shapes using a form that pops up when you click this button.

Flow Line Style: This opens a form which lets you set the color and line thickness of the connectors.

Connectors

This list allows you to specify outgoing connectors for each item. When you click Add Connector, a new line is added to the connector list, allowing you to set the Entry Id to route a connector arrow to, and optionally specify the connection side and any branch labels you want to add.

Picture 3- Text-To-Flowchart Wizard

Click Finish and the wizard will generate a flowchart. Some shapes may need to be repositioned to achieve the layout you desire.