How to Draw Basic Diagram in Microsoft Visio

By Vadim.MikhailenkoMicrosoft Office, Microsoft Visio, Productivity Tools
How to create visio diagram

Learn how to create basic Microsoft Visio Diagram with this step by step tutorial. In this post we will focus on different types of Visio diagrams available and how to create the right one for your project.

What is Microsoft Visio

Microsoft Visio is software for drawing diagrams. These include floor plans, electrical diagrams, flowcharts, org charts, building plans, floor plans, data flow diagrams, process flow diagrams, business process modeling, swimlane diagrams, 3D maps, architectural diagrams, networking diagrams, UML diagrams and many more.

If appropriate for your needs, Visio can produce extremely helpful, slick, useful diagrams of all types, and these can provide the professional look you want for presentations, reports, audits, building plans, floor plans, documentation, and modeling better ways to do things. Visio includes a big library of shapes/symbols used in dozens of diagram types. These symbols represent specialized pieces of diagrams such as process flow diagrams, business process modeling, data flow diagrams, and many more. These are used widely in various fields for various purposes.

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).

 

Where Microsoft Visio Can Be Used

Microsoft Visio can be used in all below settings and more:

How to draw simple floor plan in Microsoft Visio

In Architecture: Create Floor plans, plumbing and electrical diagrams

General use of Visio Diagram: A flowchart, which can take various forms, can be used to document and analyze a process; standardize a process for efficiency and quality; communicate a process for training or understanding by other parts of the organization; and identify bottlenecks, redundancies and unnecessary steps in a process and improve it.

Visio Diagram for software engineering: UML Diagrams, Software Architecture Diagrams and Design diagrams

Visio Diagram for Business analysis: Data flow diagrams (DFDs) can provide a focused approach to technical development, in which more research is done upfront to get to coding. Business analysts use DFDs to analyze existing systems and find efficiencies. Diagramming the process can uncover steps that might otherwise be missed or not fully understood.

Visio Diagram for Business: Business Process Modeling and Notation (BPMN) is targeted at participants and other stakeholders in a business process to gain understanding through an easy-to-understand visual representation of the steps. At a more involved level, it’s targeted at the people who will implement the process, giving sufficient detail to enable precise implementation

Visio Diagram for Process Engineering: A Process Flow Diagram (PFD) is a type of flowchart that illustrates the relationships between major components at an industrial plant. Diagrams can serve to document, analyze, audit, or model a better way.

What is Visio Used For

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 org chart to explain the connections between employees
  • Required to document a network of interconnected components with no tools other than Microsoft Paint
  • Create a flowchart diagram
  • Create a Swimlane Diagram
  • Create Floor plan Diagram
  • Create Electrical Diagram
  • Create HVAC and Plumbing Diagram
  • Draw UML Diagram
  • Draw Relational Database Diagram
  • and more

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 Solution Archtiecture  and Networking Diagrams in Visio

Microsoft Visio has following capabilities to help you draw professional diagrams:

Watch my tutorial to learn more:

 

How to Draw Simple Floor Plan Diagram in Visio

Watch this video tutorial to learn how you can create a floor plan using Microsoft Visio

 

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.

Watch my tutorial below to learn How To Draw a Simple Swimlane Diagram in Visio

 

How To Create Visio Diagram. Step by Step Tutorial [2018-2019 Edition]

 

 

Follow steps below to create a basic diagram

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

  1. Select Basic Visio 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)

 

How to draw Floor Plan Diagram using Microsoft Visio (Video Tutorial)

In below video tutorial you will learn how to create more advanced Visio Diagrams for your specialty projects:

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

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About Vadim Mikhailenko 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.