Drawing a Flow Diagram

Apache OpenOffice 4.1 Draw Guide

Chapter 9: Organization Charts, Flow Diagrams, and More

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• Drawing an Organization Chart
• Drawing a Flow Diagram
• Glue Points and Connectors
  • The Connector Toolbar
  • Drawing Connectors—Basics
  • Editing Glue Points
• Adding Text to Connectors
  • Adjusting Text to Suit the Connecting Line

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Drawing a Flow Diagram

For drawing flowcharts, Draw offers a separate toolbar (Figure 208); click the flowchart icon on the main Drawing toolbar.

The easiest way to draw a flowchart is to follow the same setup procedure as for organization charts. Select the symbols from the toolbar and drag them into position as described in Chapter 2 (Drawing Basic Shapes). See Figure 209 for an example of a typical flowchart.

The individual symbols must be exactly positioned if the connectors joining them are to form a vertical line. The midpoints of all the symbols that lie in a vertical straight line should have the same X coordinate, and those on the same level on a horizontal line should have the same Y coordinate.

Figure 208: The Flowchart toolbar

Select the shapes that should lie in a vertical straight line and center them using Modify → Alignment → Centered. For those on a horizontal line, select the shapes and center them with Modify → Alignment → Center. You can also set snap lines if you need several vertical lines.

Figure 209: Example of a flow diagram

After adding text and setting the fill color, you can join individual symbols together and add text to the connectors. This technique is described in the next section.