By Jawad-ur-Rehman Chughtai

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How to draw an Entity-Relationship Diagram Using Visio 2007

Microsoft Visio 2007 is a flexible software tool that allows users to create some diagrams

and charts, providing an alternative to using traditional drawing software such as MS

Paint. Entity – Relationship diagrams (ERDs) provides a more visual way to represent the

design of database tables and the relationships between them. The most popular notation

used in textbooks is the Crow’s Foot notation that makes identifying those relationships

much easier.

Starting Visio 2007 1. Locate the Visio program in the Start Menu →All Programs → Microsoft Office

→ Microsoft Visio 2007. As the program opens, a similar window to Figure 01

will appear.

Figure 01

By Jawad-ur-Rehman Chughtai

2 2. Under Template Categories, click on General. This will take you to the different

templates under this category as shown in Figure 01.

Now choose the Basic Diagram, Double-click on it. It will take you to the next

window as shown in Figure 02.

Figure 02

3. Now, you can see a number of shapes on the left side of your window. Click on

the rectangle shape and drag it to the drawing canvas on the right side of the

window as shown in Figure 03.

By Jawad-ur-Rehman Chughtai

3

Figure 03

4. Double-click on the rectangle and write suitable name for the entity as shown in

Figure 04.

Figure 04

By Jawad-ur-Rehman Chughtai

4 5. Repeat Step 3 & 4 for all the entities you need to add in the ER Diagram as shown

in Figure 05.

Figure 05

6. Draw a line between the Customer and Order tables using the connector tool as

shown in Figure 06a.

By Jawad-ur-Rehman Chughtai

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Figure 06a

Figure 06b

7. Now right-click on the line, choose Format → Line. The Line options window

should be changed to match Figure 07.

By Jawad-ur-Rehman Chughtai

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Figure 07

So, you have done with two entities. You can repeat the steps to add more entities

and model the relationships.