Chart software allows anyone to easily create professional charts of all kinds, timelines, diagrams, and more. Charting tools are available with most professional office suites (MS Visio) and spreadsheet programs (Excel) create have the tools necessary to create basic charts, but Charting software applications offer more versatility.
Some chart applications are complete, stand-alone solutions, while others require add-on purchases to get complete functionality. Certain industries have specific charting requirements and software packages that address those needs.
These applications offer thousands of symbols to use and templates to follow when creating a variety of charts including:
- Flow charts
- Org charts
- Process flow charts
- Gantt Charts
- Schedules
- Timelines
- Crime scene diagrams
- Software diagrams
- Histogram
Charting applications may include the following features:
- Templates
- ‘smart' lines that stay connected
- Automatic alignment
- Drag and drop graphics
- 2D/3D charts
- 2D/3D lines
- Animation
- Interactive charts with animation and voice narration
- Various data sources
Major Vendors of charting solutions include:
- Microsoft (Excel, Visio)
- OzGrid
- Stanford Graphics
- NobelTec (nautical)
- SigmaPlot (Scientific)
- Smart Draw
Factors to consider when making your charting application selection:
- What is purpose – engineering, mapping, data analysis, etc – buy package appropriate to it
- Ease of use and training requirements
- Enterprise versions of this software can be expensive – so decide on user base wisely
- System resources: Not usually an issue, but sometimes small business environments are on over-taxed hardware already.