How to Make a Flow Chart in Excel or Word

Mapping out a business process can feel complicated, but creating a clear flowchart to visualize it doesn't have to be. You already have two powerful tools for the job: Microsoft Excel and Word. This guide will walk you through the exact steps to build a professional-looking flowchart in both applications, helping you clarify workflows, train team members, and find opportunities for improvement.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Why Use a Flowchart Anyway?

Before we build one, it helps to understand why flowcharts are so useful. They aren't just boxes and arrows, they are simple but powerful tools for turning a complex sequence of events into an easy-to-follow visual map. Here’s when they come in handy:

• Standardizing a Process: When you need everyone on the team to follow the same steps for a task, a flowchart provides an unambiguous guide. Think of a content approval process or how a customer support ticket is handled.
• Training New Employees: Onboarding is faster when a new hire can see exactly how a core process works instead of just reading a dense document about it.
• Identifying Bottlenecks: When you map out a workflow, you can often see where things slow down or where steps are redundant. It becomes easier to spot inefficiencies and improve the process.
• Planning a Project: Laying out the required steps and decisions helps you anticipate problems and resource needs before you start.

Understanding Basic Flowchart Symbols

You don’t need to be a certified cartographer to make a flowchart, but knowing the basic shapes will make your diagram universally understood. While there are dozens of specialized symbols, you can map out almost any business process with just a few core ones.

Here are the staples you'll find in the Shapes > Flowchart section in Excel and Word:

• Oval (Terminator): This shape signifies the start or end point of your process. You’ll have one labeled "Start" and another labeled "End."
• Rectangle (Process): This is the most common symbol. It represents a specific task, action, or operation. For example: "Publish Blog Post" or "Send Invoice to Client."
• Diamond (Decision): Use a diamond whenever there is a question that requires a "yes" or "no" answer, which then determines the next step. For example: "Has Payment Been Received?" The paths branching out of the diamond would be labeled "Yes" and "No."
• Parallelogram (Input/Output): This shape indicates data that is being input into the process or output from it. Examples include: "Client Fills Out Onboarding Form" (Input) or "Generate Monthly Report" (Output).
• Arrow (Connector): These are the lines that connect your shapes and show the direction of flow through the process.

How to Make a Flow Chart in Excel

Excel might seem like just a number-crunching tool, but its grid system makes it ridiculously easy to align shapes and create a neat, organized flowchart.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Step 1: Set Up Your Grid

The first step is to prepare your canvas. The default Excel grid can be a little cramped. To make it more layout-friendly, you can create a square grid.

• Click the triangle in the top-left corner (between the 'A' column and '1' row) to select all cells.
• Right-click on any column header (A, B, C...) and choose Column Width. Set it to a small number, like 3.

This instantly transforms your sheet into a piece of graph paper, giving you visual guidelines for perfect alignment.

Step 2: Insert Your First Shape

Every flowchart starts somewhere. Let's add the "Start" symbol.

• Go to the Insert tab on the Ribbon.
• Click on Illustrations > Shapes.
• A dropdown menu will appear. Find the Flowchart section and select the oval shape (Terminator).
• Your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click and drag on the sheet to draw the shape.

Pro Tip: Hold down the Shift key while dragging to draw a perfect circle instead of an oval.

Step 3: Add Text and Additional Shapes

Once you’ve drawn your shape, you can add text directly to it.

• Click on the shape and start typing. "Start" is a good one for the first oval. You can adjust the font, size, and alignment using the options in the Home tab.
• Now, add subsequent shapes for your process. Go back to Insert > Shapes and select a rectangle for your first process step, then a diamond for a decision, and so on.

Step 4: Connect the Shapes with Lines

Your flowchart is just a collection of shapes until you connect them and show the flow.

• Go to Insert > Shapes > Lines and select the arrow.
• Hover your cursor over the edge of your starting shape. You'll see several small connection points appear.
• Click on one of these points, then drag your cursor to a connection point on the next shape and release.

Using these connection points "locks" the arrow to the shapes. Now, if you move the shapes around, the arrows will stay attached and readjust automatically - a major time-saver!

If you have branching logic from a Decision diamond, add arrows from it to the different outcomes. Simply right-click on the arrow and choose "Edit Text" to add labels like "Yes" or "No."

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Step 5: Format and Style Your Flowchart

Now for the fun part: making it look good. Select a shape, and a new Shape Format tab will appear on the Ribbon.

Here you can:

• Use Shape Styles to apply pre-made color themes.
• Change the Shape Fill (the color inside the shape).
• Adjust the Shape Outline (the color and thickness of the border).

To keep things consistent, try using different colors for different types of shapes (e.g., blue for processes, orange for decisions).

Pro Tip: To apply the same style to multiple shapes, format one shape perfectly. Then, select that shape, go to the Home tab, click Format Painter, and click on another shape to instantly copy the styling.

How to Make a Flowchart in Word

Creating a flowchart in Microsoft Word is almost identical to the process in Excel, but with a few minor differences due to Word's free-form, text-based environment. It's often better for documents where the flowchart is supporting text.

Step 1: Open a Document and Insert a Canvas (Optional but Recommended)

Although you can add shapes directly to a Word document, it’s much easier to manage them if you first insert a drawing canvas.

• Go to the Insert tab > Shapes.
• At the very bottom of the dropdown menu, select New Drawing Canvas.

A bordered box will appear on your page. This canvas acts as a container for your flowchart, making it easier to move the entire diagram as one object.

Step 2: Add and Connect Shapes

This process is the same as in Excel:

• Select the canvas (if you are using one).
• Go to Insert > Shapes > Flowchart and choose your shapes.
• Click and drag to draw them.
• Add text by clicking on the shape and typing.
• Use connection lines (Insert > Shapes > Lines) and attach them to the connection points on each shape.

You can format the shapes and lines using the Shape Format tab, just as you would in Excel.

Graphed

Still Building Reports Manually?

Watch how growth teams are getting answers in seconds — not days.

Watch the Demo

Step 3: Manage Your Flowchart's Position in the Document

The main challenge in Word is managing how your flowchart interacts with your text. Select your canvas or a shape, and you'll see a small Layout Options icon appear next to it.

• Click the icon to see a menu of Text Wrapping options.
• Options like Square or Tight will have your text wrap around the diagram.
• In Line with Text will treat your flowchart like a giant character, which can be awkward.
• In Front of Text gives you total freedom to place it anywhere on the page, but it may cover text.

Experiment to find the best layout for your document.

Best Practices for Effective Flowcharts

Building the chart is one thing, making it effective is another. Keep these tips in mind to ensure your flowchart is clear and easy to understand.

• Stay Consistent: Use the same shape for the same type of action every time. If a rectangle is a process step, it should always be a process step.
• Flow in One Direction: The general flow should be from top to bottom or left to right. Avoid arrows that point backward or crisscross all over the page, which can be confusing.
• Keep Text Concise: Use clear, simple language inside your shapes. Instead of a full sentence, use a short verb-noun phrase like "Submit Expense Report."
• Focus on One Process: Don't try to cram too much into one flowchart. If your process is very long or has several complex sub-processes, break it into smaller, linked flowcharts.
• Get a Second Pair of Eyes: Ask a colleague who isn't familiar with the process to review your flowchart. If they can understand it without any context, you've done a great job.

Final Thoughts

You've seen that creating a clean, professional flowchart in either Excel or Word is a straightforward process using the built-in Shapes tools. By understanding the basic symbols and following a few formatting best practices, you can visually map any workflow to improve clarity and efficiency for your team.

Visualizing a manual process with a flowchart is an excellent way to organize a workflow, however, visualizing your business performance often involves a much greater manual lift. Much like creating a complex flowchart, pulling data from Google Analytics, Salesforce, Shopify, and various ad platforms to manually build reports can consume hours. We built Graphed to solve this exact problem. It connects to all of your data sources in one place, allowing you to create live, interactive dashboards just by asking questions in plain English - no wrestling with shapes and arrows required.