Microsoft Visio is a powerful diagramming and flow chart software, that allows you to simplify complex information with professional diagrams you can create in just a few clicks. Visio makes diagramming simple—whether you want to quickly capture a flowchart that you brainstormed on a whiteboard, map an IT network, build an organizational chart, document a business process, or draw a floor plan.

Visio is used to create a variety of drawings including flow charts, network diagrams, process flows, organization charts, part illustrations, maps, floor plans, calendars, and more. It can be used for a variety of purposes and is a powerful software for designing diagrams and drawings.

For example below Microsoft Visio 3D Networking diagram was created in 10 minutes to show the networking map of intranet servers and how they are related to eCommerce server, which is located in DMZ (De-militarized zone).

Benefits of Microsoft Visio?

Have you ever ran into of these situations?

• Attempting to explain a complex topic and the audience doesn’t quite understand or connect with your description?
• Managing an organization which needs a chart to explain the connections between employees?
• Required to document a network of interconnected components with no tools other than Microsoft Paint?

These are just a few of the situations you could be in which require a tool such as Microsoft Visio. I would venture to guess that most people who have Visio and don’t use it do not grasp the multiple situations in which it will be helpful in and how much time it could save you. Microsoft Visio is not a drawing program, though it has drawing tools, it is best described as a diagramming tool which can be used to take a complex topic and illustrate it. After reading this Visio tutorial, we hope you will learn the many cases you can use Visio and begin using the tool for illustrating business processes, diagramming networks, or creating a floor plan

How to create professional diagrams in Visio

• Quicker access to frequently used tools, new and updated shapes and stencils, and improved and expanded themes and effects make it easier to create professional diagrams.
• Pre-built shapes and connectors
• Different design styles available, independently from the diagram itself, based on the target shape and color theme
• Updated diagramming standards are supported, including Basic Flowcharts, Basic Flow diagrams Brainstorming diagrams, Unified Modeling Language (UML) 2.4 diagrams, Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) 2.0, and you can now publish SharePoint workflows.

How to create a basic flowchart diagram using Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio is part of the Microsoft Office productivity suite and is used to create flowcharts in addition to other important uses in the typical business environment. In fact, IT professionals have come to rely on the power of Visio for creating logic charts when planning out new programs and just about every corporation finds some use for this valuable program in the workplace.

Although Visio can be used for a few other thing, the primary focus is creating flowcharts and diagrams. Flowcharts are diagrams that show the steps in a process. Using a combination of shapes, text, and lines, a flowchart created in Visio is easy to understand and relatively simple to create. In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a basic flowchart using Microsoft Visio. Once you have mastered the basics, you can move on to some of the more advanced templates within Visio such as data flow diagrams, timelines, and even software modeling.

Follow steps below to create a basic diagram

When you launch Microsoft Visio 2016 you see different templates, available to you, based on the type of the diagram you are trying to create

1. Select Basic Diagram

1. Once new diagram is created in Visio, you will see multiple Stencils available:
   1. Quick Shapes
   2. Basic Shapes
   3. Arrow Shapes
   4. Decorative Shapes
   5. Graph and Math Shapes

1. In the tools section make sure “Pointer Tool” is selected.
   

1. Drag and drop 3 rectangle shapes from the Stensils area onto the main Page.
2. Change Tool to “Connector”
3. Connect shapes as shown in the diagram below. Connectors can connect two shapes together directly or can connect one shape to multiple other shapes from a single connection point.
4. Double click on the rectangular shape and type the text insider the text, as shown in the diagram below. You can add text to shapes and connectors by selecting it and then typing. Once you’re finished adding text, simply click on a blank area of the page to go back to normal editing. If your connector has arrows, you can also change the direction of the arrows by selecting the connection and then clicking Reverse Ends.

Watch Video Tutorial: How to Create First Visio Diagram (Step by Step Tutorial)

Next Steps:

1. Download Microsoft Visio diagram from this tutorial here
2. Review Visio Video Tutorials
3. Download 3D Networking Microsoft Visio Diagram used in the video
4. Subscribe to my email list to receive more tutorials like this one:

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If you would like to learn more about Microsoft Visio you can enroll into below online training courses:

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Vadim Mikhailenko is an  Information Technology IT Consultant and Educator. Vadim has 20+ years of experience in IT working for large and medium size companies in Milwaukee metropolitan area. Vadim enjoys learning new technologies and believes that by using technology you can’t just make yourself productive, but you can also change lives of others and change the world for the better.