Document and Data Flow Chart Help Needed

My boss wants me to do a document flow as well as a data flow chart for our department. Does anyone know where I can get a beginner's description of the symbols and so on? Many Thanks. Please reply to:
humble@nospambestweb.net (drop the nospam)before sending.

[Marc]

I did a search here in the forums for Flow Chart and got over 40 matches including http://Elsmar.com/Forums/showthread.php?t=153

[David Mullins]

Please don't beat me for saying this, but WORD does have a set of flow chart symbols that you can use. Alternatively, other programs you're running will also have these described synbols.

Create your own standard set of symbols if need be, because there is simply no consistency in the usage of symbols.

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[Marc]

I haven't explored the symbols in Word, but now that you mention it I know Powerpoint has a whole bunch of symbols under its AutoSymbols menu. In the Mac version as you 'mouse-over' each symbol in the flow charting pallet its description (such as 'decision' for the diamond) shows in a small box.

[barb butrym]

do yourself a favor...pick up a copy of the standard version of VISIO...its reasonable and dead easy, self explanatory...all drag and drop...don't bother with the professional version...it gets into technical stuff and schematics, etc.
Got my 10 year old grandson doing them in 5 minutes....seriously.

[Marc]

I have Smartdraw www.smartdraw.com - it does everything Visio does and more. Integrates with Office as well. Cheaper than Visio. $49 bucks for the sdtandard and $100 bucks for the 'professional' version. All flow chart programs are easy to use any more and Smartdraw is no exception.

On the other hand, I typically use Powerpoint for flow charts. Normally I simply don't need all the bells and whistles Smartdraw has. PP has everything you need as well.

Smartdraw and Visio are for when you really want to get into details like linking files and such.

[barb butrym]

cool....I had not heard of smartdraw before.... I don't typically use the bells and whistles...but Visio does link to MS office, so it has served me well....I tend to keep things simple. But i must boast I have gotten better, and on a rare occassion have linked photos and instruction video (AVI) to the visio charts and other procedure/form references. I never thought of using Power Point for flow charts....although I have for org charts??? probably cause I have been using Visio longer than Power Point?

[Laura M]

I got the VISIO demo for $1.55 S/H. Many of my clients us it so I figured I'd eventually buy it. Marc, do you know if a flow chart from smartdraw get saved into visio?

I've used the project managment tool in VISIO(Gantt chart) successfully as well.