How to Make an Organizational Chart | Word | Excel
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An Organizational Chart is a visual representation of how your organization is structured. It also delineates hierarchical relationships by clearly illustrating who reports to whom in an unambiguous manner. If you own or have access to a copy of Microsoft Word, you don’t need any other software to create an Organizational Chart
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How to Make an Organizational Chart
In Microsoft Word, the first steps you take in creating your Organizational Chart begin with starting from the Insert Tab and the Illustrations Group and then choosing SmartArt. You will then be taken to the Choose A SmartArt Graphic section. Here, you can opt for the Organizational Chart by way of Hierarchy.
You then add or delete relationships from the basic chart offered. While “players” in your organization are often referred to as “boxes” in the literature, when you use Microsoft Word to create your Organizational Chart, you can choose any of a number of interesting graphics, often referred to as “Shapes” to represent any individual. You can even give your new player an “Assistant”, whose Shape will clearly indicate that status.
Once you choose the Shape you wish to add, Microsoft Word will direct you to choose the existing Shape that is closest to where you want it to appear. The program than affords you the opportunity to place the new shape above, below, to the left or to the right of the existing Shape.
Of course, the program also allows you delete any Shape, regardless of whether you added it or if it came from the program originally. You can, and must, insert lines between your shapes to indicate who reports to whom. The program makes this easy to do, and you can choose various types of lines to indicate different natures of reporting responsibility.
You must next insert text into each of the SmartArt graphics in your Organizational Chart. You can simply click on the relevant box and type in the words you want. There will also be Text pane that you can call up by hitting Control. From here, too, you can either enter text directly, or copy and past text from another location.
Microsoft Word also offers some surprisingly advanced features to enhance the utility and appearance of your Organizational Chart.
There is a Layout feature that allows you to choose a Shape, and specify how all the shapes reporting to that Shape are then displayed. For example, if you choose Left Hanging, they all appear in a column format below and to the left of the top Shape. If you choose Standard, they appear in a row format, also, of course, below the top Shape.
You can also change the color of any part of your chart, and you can also opt for three-dimensional effects. You can even opt for transparency at any percentage you choose, which might be useful if you have an especially complex Organizational Chart.
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