You can make flowcharts in both Visio and PowerPoint. Both products have great flowcharting features, but each are designed for specific uses. This article offers some pointers for when you might want to use which product.

To begin with, consider the following factors about the flowchart you intend to create:

• Size and complexity: Is it a short process that can fit on one page, or does it span many tasks and groups?
• Intended life cycle: Will it have a one-time use or will you revise and update it over time?
• Use: Do you want a one-time snapshot of the process, or a dynamic representation that you can use to evaluate process efficiency?

The following table summarizes which best product is best to use when:

Create a small flowchart for use in a slide presentation

If you're preparing a slide presentation and want to include a small flowchart on one of the slides, it's most efficient to create a flowchart in PowerPoint right on the slide where you want to include it.

The Flowchart and Connector AutoShapes in PowerPoint make it easy to assemble a small flowchart. The flowchart shapes automatically take on the color scheme of the slide.

Note  If the flowchart you need has already been created in Visio, you don't have to recreate it in PowerPoint. You can just copy and paste it onto the PowerPoint slide.

Create a large or complex flowchart

If you're creating a large or complex flowchart, you'll benefit from the unlimited drawing space and flexibility that Visio provides.

In Visio, if a flowchart extends beyond the boundaries of a letter size page, you have several options. You can:

• Change the drawing page size or orientation so the page contains the flowchart.
• Draw as much of your flowchart as you can on one page. Then, use an off-page reference to create a link to a page on which the flowchart continues.
• Change the flowchart size so that it fits on one letter-sized page.

Create a flowchart that you can revise over time

While you can save a flowchart you create in PowerPoint (or Visio) to a variety of graphic formats, these formats do not support the features that make revising flowcharts easy (for example, connecting lines that glue to shapes and the click-and-type method for adding text).

When you create and maintain a flowchart in Visio, you have an independent file that you can:

• Easily keep up to date over the life of a project.
• Link to a document or slide presentation so that updates you make to the original flowchart always appear in the document or presentation.

Compare and evaluate processes

If you want a snapshot of a basic process, both products offer great tools. But, if you want your flowchart to function as a tool for measuring process efficiency, choose Visio.

Visio flowchart shapes are designed so that you can store information in them, such as numerical data related to the cost, duration, and resources required by each process step.

When you add information to flowchart shapes, the flowchart becomes a dynamic tool with which you can perform evaluation tasks such as:

• Comparing two ways of handling a process to see which costs more or takes longer
• Getting a detailed view of exactly how many resources are devoted to completing a task
• Gathering quality management and process re-engineering data