Organizational charts are the most common type of organizational diagram. They show relationships between objects in simple tree (hierarchical) format. Here’s an organizational chart that shows the structure of a company:

 

 

You can start creating an organizational chart by clicking the Insert Diagram button () on the drawing toolbar, or by clicking the Insert menu and clicking Diagram. Either action will open the diagram gallery; you can see this dialog to the right.

 

Our first option is the Organization Chart, so it’s already selected. We just need to click OK to continue.

 

Once we click OK, the chart will be inserted into our document. The diagram toolbar will also be displayed. Here’s an example:

 

 

You can then click within the shapes and enter your own text. You can even format the text with our usual options, like font sizes, borders, and effects. You can also use the dots at each corner of the chart to make it bigger or smaller, like this:

 

 

You can also delete any shape simply by selecting it and pressing the Delete or Backspace key on your keyboard.

 

We can perform additional editing tasks using the Organizational Chart toolbar. The first button on this toolbar, Insert Shape, lets us add extra shapes to the chart. First, click the level where you want the shape to appear. Then, click the Insert Shape menu. Each item on this menu has a small graphic, with the dark box in this graphic showing where the shape will be placed.

 

Let’s click the first box in our sample diagram and add a subordinate.

 

 

That makes sense; the subordinate was inserted under the selected box.

 

Let’s select the subordinate and add a co-worker, the second option under the Insert Shapes menu.

 

 

You can see how there are now two subordinates under Box 1. (We have added the text Subordinate to make things clearer.)

 

Our last option in the Insert Shapes menu is Assistant. Let’s see what that does to Box 1.

 

 

Now, there’s another level between box one and their subordinates: the assistant.

You can change the layout of the organization chart using the Layout menu on the organization chart toolbar.

 

By default, Word chooses AutoLayout for you, meaning that the most appropriate layout is used. In this situation, that layout is hanging. When you select a layout, it will apply to the selected level down. (You’ll notice that each layout has a small graphic to help you choose the correct one.) So if you want the layout to apply to the whole chart, make sure that the very top level is selected.

 

Let’s look at what happens to our sample chart when we change the layout to other types. (For our purposes, we’re going to choose the very top box and then pick the layout.) For your convenience, we’ve labelled the parts of the sample diagram to help you see how they have moved around

 

Standard:

 

 

Both hanging:

 

 

Left hanging:

 

 

Right hanging:

 

 

You can see how Word has changed the font sizes to make them all equal and to make them fit in their shapes.

 

The next option in the Diagram toolbar lets you select a level, branch, all assistants, or all connecting lines. This can be a useful tool if you want to change the formatting of a particular group of items. For example, if you selected All Assistants, you could change the font size for the text in all Assistant level boxes. Or, if you chose All Connecting Lines, you could change the colour for all the lines at once.

 

The next option () opens the Organization Chart Style Gallery:

 

 

You can select a diagram style from the list on the left and see a preview on the right. Once you have the style you want, click OK to apply it. You can also click Cancel to not make any changes to your chart.

 

The next button () is our old friend the text wrapping menu; this allows you to choose how text is wrapped around your chart. The last button allows you to zoom in and out of your diagram, like the zoom menu on the standard toolbar.