Visio: Programmatically creating an org chart from a simple text file
As a believer in the power of simple text formats, I wrote a tool to help make it easy to quickly draw org charts in visio by starting in notepad. It’s useful for more than “org charts” youcan use it to quickly render any simple hierarchical data.
Quick summary
- The VisioAutoExt library now contains a command-line tool called MakeOrgChart
- MakeFlowChart accepts simple indented text file draws an org chart based on the indentation level
Command-Line Usage
C:\>MakeOrgChart.exe d:\input1.txt
Example 1 – the input text file
Charlie
Tim
Chris
Mort
Julia
Alice
Akuma
Example 1 – the output drawing
Example 2 – the input text file
This example illustrates
- a much larger orgchart
- these org charts will tend to be very horizontal. you’ll have to use Visio’s org chart tools to re-layout sections to meet your needs
- The larger these get, the longer it takes visio to draw them using its layout algorithm.
- multiple roots nodes in the org chart
- the drawing will compensate by adding a placeholder “ROOT” node, which you can manually delete
- using the vertical bar character to add linebreaks in the the text
Charlie | President and CEO
Tim | IT Manager
Chris | Operations Engineer
Simon | System Implementer
Isaac | ISV Biz App Developer
Mort | IT Systems Developer
Sean | Power User
Ivar | Inexp. VAR Sys Imp
Julia | Marketing Executive
Kevin | Sales Manager
Nicole | Marketing Staffer
Benjamin | Marketing Manager
David | Dedicated Sales Rep
Michael | Account Manager
Susan | Order Processor
Marie | Cust. Serv Ops Mngr
Lisa | Cust. Service Rep
Daniel | Dispatcher
Rebecca | Receptionist/Admin
Terrence | Outbound Technician
Vince | Operations Manager
Karl | Materials Manager
Ellen | Warehouse Manager
Inga | Purchasing Manager
Sammy | Shipping & Receiving
Alicia | Purchasing Agent
John | Warehouse Worker
Ted | Transportation Coord.
Tony | Production Manager
Lars | Shop Supervisor
Oscar | Process Engineer
Shannon | Machine Operator
Eduardo | Production Planner
Heather | Human Resources
Ricardo | Quality Assurance
Emil | Product Designer
June | Dir. of Prof. Services
Prakash | Project Manager
Reina | Resource Manager
Tricia | Project Team Member
Sara | CFO
Phyllis | Accounting Manager
Ken | Controller
Cassie | Accountant
Penny | Payroll
Arnie | Accounts Receivable
April | Accounts Payable
Annie | Bookkeeper
Connie | Credit & Collections Manager
Claire | HR Director / Manager
Brooke | HR Assistant
Grace | Training/Development Manager/ Specialist
Jacob| Staffing Recruitment Manager/Specialist
Jodi | Copensation and benifits Manger
Luke | HR Generalist
Stan |Small Business Owner
Debra | Office Manager
Lacy | Store Operations Mngr
Jeremy | Cashier
Example 2 – the output drawing
