How to make an org chart in Excel by hand

Step 1: Make room on a separate sheet

SmartArt floats above the cells, so give it a sheet of its own rather than drawing over your staff list. Turning off gridlines (View → Gridlines) makes the chart easier to read on screen. If you plan to print, set the orientation to landscape under Page Layout now, so you can see where the page breaks fall while you work.

Step 2: Insert the SmartArt Organization Chart

1. Open the Insert tab. SmartArt sits in the Illustrations group; on narrow windows the group collapses into a single Illustrations button.
2. Choose Hierarchy on the left of the dialog.
3. Select Organization Chart, or Name and Title Organization Chart if you want the job title on its own line.
4. Click OK. A starter chart with placeholder boxes appears on the sheet.

Step 3: Copy the names from your cells

This is the one shortcut Excel offers. Sort your staff list so that each manager is followed by their team, select the names in that column and copy them. Open the SmartArt text pane with the arrow on the left edge of the graphic, delete the placeholder lines and paste: each row becomes a box on the same level.

Now set the hierarchy by hand. Click a line and press Tab to make it a report of the line above, or Shift+Tab to move it up a level. Remember that the chart keeps a copy of the text: when a name changes in your cells, the chart does not change with it.

Step 4: Add assistants, change the layout and style it

Select a box and open the SmartArt Design tab. Add Shape adds a colleague (After or Before), a manager (Above) or a report (Below); Add Assistant puts a staff position such as an office manager on a side connector. The Layout button switches the reports of the selected box between Standard and the hanging layouts that stack them vertically, which keeps wide teams from running off the page.

Change Colors and SmartArt Styles format the whole chart at once. For department colours, select the boxes with Ctrl and set a fill on the Format tab.

Alternative: shapes and connectors

If SmartArt’s layouts are too rigid, you can draw the chart from plain shapes. Insert a rectangle from Insert → Shapes, type the name, then copy it for each person. Join the boxes with an Elbow Connector from the Lines section: when its ends snap onto the dots on a shape, the line follows the box when you move it. Shape Format → Align lines boxes up and spaces them evenly.

This gives you full control, for example for a matrix with dotted lines, but it is the slowest method and every reorganisation means moving boxes again.

Printing an Excel org chart

Check File → Print before you print. Under Page Layout, set Fit to one page wide in the Scale to Fit group, or choose a larger paper size if your printer supports it. A SmartArt graphic that crosses a page break is cut in two, so move or resize it until it sits within one page.

Where Excel reaches its limits

Drawing in Excel feels natural because the data is already there, but the drawing does not use the data. In general experience:

• No link to the cells: SmartArt and shapes keep their own text, so the chart and the list drift apart.
• Levels are set by hand with Tab, one line at a time, even if your manager column already says who reports to whom.
• In our experience the chart becomes hard to read and rearrange somewhere past 30 boxes.
• Open positions, part-time roles and departments are only text and colour you format yourself.
• Every change in the team means editing the diagram again.