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Been using Visio at work to do flowcharts, and I'm liking how easy it is to do overall, notably creating and linking shapes.

I'm trying to find something for Linux that works the same way, or at least is as easy to use. In a sense, something that flows as easily, where I don't have to put in extra time adding lines, fighting with the ability to put in text*, etc.

I've tried Dia, OpenOffice.org Draw and Kivio, but none of them are quite what I'm looking for. I could use UML and sequence diagrams, but I prefer the look and feel of flow carts for basic logic charting.

So, question is: What programs are available that work on Linux that would let me easily make flow charts?

* I'm pretty sure this is just because of the version of Dia I'm using. Fedora 12, default repos, going to install Ubuntu 10.10 soon, see if that helps

Dennis Williamson
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Tarka
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9 Answers9

26

LibreOffice Draw can be used for the task.

This page provides some directions

Community
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Verve
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23

I use Dia, which is also open-source.

Dia is roughly inspired by the commercial Windows program 'Visio,' though more geared towards informal diagrams for casual use. It can be used to draw many different kinds of diagrams. It currently has special objects to help draw entity relationship diagrams, UML diagrams, flowcharts, network diagrams, and many other diagrams. It is also possible to add support for new shapes by writing simple XML files, using a subset of SVG to draw the shape.

It can load and save diagrams to a custom XML format (gzipped by default, to save space), can export diagrams to a number of formats, including EPS, SVG, XFIG, WMF and PNG, and can print diagrams (including ones that span multiple pages).

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Canadian Luke
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You may want to try yEd. Compared to Dia, it has more features (like automatic layout), and a modern user interface (although it could be better).

Marco Righele
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I had to make some flowcharts just recently, I used Lucidchart.

There is a free version and it is possible to make quite a complex flowchart before you hit the limit. Well, give it a try. It can't be more cross-platform or easier than a web service. :)

Apache
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I stumbled on this question (quite old) just now while doing a quick search for a flowchart software.

When no one gave a good solution I tried the Ubuntu Software Center; the only one I could find is the "Calligra Flow" which is part of the Calligra Office Suite (which I believe is a new office suite or at least i recently heard about!).

I can't tell you about it, but it seems good. I am installing it my self right now (note that it requires quite a lot of packages with a total 259MB installation size, which is rather large!).

To install it use the package name calligraflow.

Hope this helps you or anyone else.

gypaetus
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user10853
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It's not free, but Flying Logic can do nice flow charts.

enter image description here

I'm also a fan of XMind which does have a free version. It's more mind mapping than flow charts, but if you try hard enough you can make it look like a flow chart.

Matthew Lock
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Umbrello is great if you use kde 4.x

OneOfOne
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A great solution that is web based is Lucidchart. It works on all platforms and is integrated with google drive. It also enable real time collaboration. I highly recommend it

bear
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If you like Visio so much why not just use it. I have Microsoft Office 2010 and Visio, they work just fine in Ubuntu. I think many people forget that wine is no longer in an experimental/unstable phase (that was like over a decade ago!) and can more windows apps work with it than ones that don't, in my personal experience, 80% of all my windows apps work fine, some ever better, under Linux... and office is no exception :) Hope that helps and for the record, Dia and Draw are okay but they, like all programs you know nothing about, will be awkward to learn and cut into your precious time...this is why keeping your familiars around is so important. Don't reinvent the wheel if you don't have to.

hope this helps you and others too (PS: wine version i use is 1.5.28 but I've been using office since version 1.5.25--it may work with earlier ones too like 1.4 I'm not sure. Ubuntu version 12.04 LTS)

osirisgothra
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