How to draw a flowchart by hand

Why a rough flowchart is easier to change

A rigid flowchart tool makes you decide the exact size and position of every box before you can see the flow, and that is the wrong order. A hand drawn one lets you put a rough box anywhere and tidy it later, which is why the messy version gets discussed and the tidy one does not.

The cost is honest: rough boxes are easier to change and harder to read, so a sketch is a thinking tool rather than a deliverable. Most people do both, inking a rough pass to settle the route and then dropping clean shapes over the top.

That two-pass approach suits the canvas, because a brush stroke and a rectangle are separate elements sitting on the same page. Delete one and the other stays exactly where it was. The diagram guide covers the tidy pass in full.

• Rough boxes settle the route before the layout
• A sketch is a thinking tool, not a deliverable
• Ink first, clean shapes second
• Each pass is a separate element on the page

Inking the boxes with the brush

Pick the Crayon/Chalk brush for a rough box, because the grainy line reads as provisional. The Calligraphy Pen gives a slanted doubled edge that looks like a marker pen, and the Smooth Pen gives a clean line for a box whose shape you already know.

Draw a box as four separate strokes rather than one closed shape. Open corners help, because a box can be corrected with one extra line rather than redrawn, and slightly wonky corners read as a person thinking on paper.

Keep the boxes roughly the same size. A row of boxes that vary in scale looks like a drawing, whereas boxes that vary slightly look like a person who cares about the content, and the second one is much easier to review.

• Crayon/Chalk for provisional boxes
• Calligraphy Pen for a marker-like edge
• Smooth Pen for lines you are sure about
• Four strokes per box, corners left open

Note: The brushes record the path of your pointer rather than rendering a stroke, so a hand drawn line is a path you can still select and move. That is why a box made of four separate strokes can be corrected one line at a time.

Adding arrows between the boxes

Press U and choose the Arrow shape, then drag from the edge of one box toward the next. The arrow is a shape like any other, so it can be moved, rotated, recolored, and given a thicker or a dashed stroke.

The Line shape does the same job without the head, which is the right choice for a connector between two boxes in a sequence where the order is already obvious from the layout, and for a line that separates rather than points.

Here is the honest limit: Canvasola has no connector objects. An arrow does not attach itself to a box and does not follow it when the box moves, so every move means checking the arrows around it. The shortcut list has the duplicate and delete keys.

• U, then the Arrow sub-tool, then drag
• Line for connectors that do not need a head
• Rotate an arrow with the handle above its box
• Arrows do not follow the boxes they point at

Straightening one box without redrawing the page

The point of a rough sketch is that one box changes, and a redrawn box means the corner moved a pixel, the line weight changed and the rest of the page now looks inconsistent with it.

There is a cleaner route. Press V to select the box and press Delete, then draw the replacement with the same brush, or drop a clean rectangle on top of the rough one with U. The rough strokes underneath stay in the document as history you can bring back.

Selection handles make small corrections cheap as well. A selected box can be dragged, resized with the four corner handles, and rotated with the handle above it, so a box that is a few degrees off can be straightened without a redraw.

• Delete the wrong box with V, then Delete
• Drop a clean rectangle over the rough one
• Four corner handles resize a selection
• The handle above the box rotates it

Keeping a discarded draft out of sight

The layers panel on the right lists every element with a count, and each row has a show and hide control. Toggle off the first attempt at a box and it leaves the page while staying in the document, one click away from coming back.

That is how you keep a rejected route beside the route you chose without it confusing anyone who opens the file. It also works for drafts of labels: hide a phrasing you are unsure about rather than deleting it, and unhide it if the discussion goes the other way.

The panel deletes as well. Deleting a row removes the element for good, and the way back is Ctrl/Cmd+Z, since the shared history keeps 20 versions. Hiding is the reversible option and deleting is the final one, so use them in that order of preference.

• Every element has a row with a visibility toggle
• Hidden elements stay in the document
• Hiding beats deleting while a draft is alive
• Undo covers a delete, 20 versions back

Going from sketch to a clean diagram

When the route is settled, switch to the Shape tool and draw the real boxes: rectangles for steps, an ellipse for a start or an end, a hexagon for a decision. Keep the rough ink as texture underneath, or hide it in the layers panel once the clean version is in place.

Retype the labels rather than inking them, because a text element can be edited, restyled and moved. Ten fonts and a size slider are available, and a typed flow reads better than a hand lettered one, however good the handwriting is.

Keep the clean pass on the same page as the rough one. A separate file loses the comparison, and the comparison is what proves the new version is better. The annotation guide uses the same habit of marking a copy rather than the original.

• Rectangles for steps, ellipses for ends, hexagons for decisions
• Type the labels instead of inking them
• Keep the rough pass visible for comparison
• Hide the rough pass when the clean one is right

Showing the flow to someone else

Export as PNG for a chat message, as JPG when the file needs to be small, or as vector SVG if the flow will be revised. Print current view opens your browser's print dialog for a paper copy, and the browser can turn that job into a PDF.

Read the flow back before you send it. Start at the entry point and follow the arrows out loud, checking that every arrow lands somewhere and that no box is orphaned. A hand drawn flow is easy to read wrong, because the reader supplies the connections you only implied.

If the flow has to be presented rather than sent, put the steps into frames and walk them in App Builder, where frames sit in reading order and Present mode advances between them. The flow guide covers that side.

• PNG to share, SVG to revise, JPG to compress
• Follow the arrows out loud before sending
• Every arrow lands on a block
• No block is left without a way in

A checklist you can reuse

• The route was settled in ink before clean shapes
• Boxes are roughly the same size
• Arrows were placed by hand and checked after every move
• A wrong box was corrected by replacement, not by redrawing the page
• Discarded drafts are hidden rather than left visible
• Labels were typed in the clean version, not inked
• The flow was read out loud from the entry point

Common mistakes to avoid

• Inking the final version. Hand lettering cannot be edited, corrected or restyled, so a label change means erasing and redrawing. Ink the route, type the final labels.
• Assuming arrows follow their boxes. There are no connector objects, so an arrow stays where you put it when the box moves. Check the arrows after every move in a busy flow.
• Erasing across the whole page. The eraser removes paint along the path of the stroke, including any box outline it crosses. Erase around a mark rather than through it.
• Leaving three drafts on one page. A page with a rejected box, a rejected arrow and a rejected label reads as confusion. Hide the discards in the layers panel before anyone else opens the file.
• Sending the flow without walking it. A rough diagram is easy to misread, because the reader fills in the gaps you left. Trace the route out loud before the file leaves your screen.

Frequently asked questions

Will the arrows stay attached to my boxes if I move them?

No. Canvasola has no connector objects, so an arrow is an ordinary shape that stays where you put it. Move a box and you must move or redraw the arrow too. That is the main cost of drawing a flow by hand, and why a rough flow works best while the route is still changing.

Should I draw the boxes freehand or use shapes?

Both, in that order. Freehand boxes get the route down fast, and open corners make a wrong one easy to correct. Once the route stops moving, drop real rectangle, ellipse and hexagon shapes over the top and type the labels, which is what makes the finished flow readable.

Can the sketch become an editable diagram?

Export as Vector (SVG) and the shapes, strokes and text are written as vector paths, so the flow can be reopened and adjusted in a vector editor. Canvasola will not rebuild the layout, because there is no automatic arrangement on the canvas, and the .canv project file keeps your working arrangement as you left it.

How do I remove one wrong stroke without losing the page?

Press E for the eraser and drag over the mark. The eraser clears paint along the path of the stroke, so keep it away from the box outlines. If the stroke was an element of its own, select it with V and press Delete instead, which is reversible with Ctrl/Cmd+Z.

This guide is part of the canvas and sketching collection. For the wider product tour, read the complete Canvasola guide, and keep the keyboard shortcut cheat sheet open while you work.