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Short instructions on using the free version of Lucidchart software
Lucidchart is a web-based proprietary platform that is used to allow users to collaborate on drawing,
revising and sharing charts and diagrams. If you do not have Visio this is a good alternative. Lucidchart
runs on browsers that support HTML5. It can run on a Windows, Android or Apple OS computer running
a browser like Firefox. It has besides the paid version also a freeware version that is free forever provided
you do use it only for personal needs (that is not the same as a trial version for the paid software that is
only available for 7 days and we do not need that).
To start : Click on https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/tour/flowchart_freeware
Click the “sign-up for free” tab on the upper-right of the page. Then select free sign-up option between
the two options the site gives. Then in the area Fee single user click on the button Sign-up, then select at
the bottom of the prompt, “Sign-up with office 365”. That will take you to the Microsoft login page, where
you can put in your school email.
Later you can sign in with your email and password and those can be remembered by your browser.
Note: Be careful not to select the trial version of the paid program as it is free only for 7 days. If you get
a message that you are trying a feature from the paid premium version of the software while you
followed the instructions, then most likely you have already three open current documents-see the last
note at the end of this file. Once you login, you may be taken to your account. Do not elect to try the
free trial. Select in that case from the top line of menu items “DOCUMENTS” and proceed as described
below.
Once you are logged in the system, after you have to choose from the menu in the left side
column
Templates (you can also select from the menus File /New Document )
Then scroll down in the left side column to the group of templates labelled VISUALIZE TECHNICAL
SYSTEMS, from which you can select the options in point 1 or 2 below:
1. To draw an Entity Relationship Diagram or a Dataflow diagram you click
on: Database diagram
Then choose the first template: Blank ERD and Data flow and follow the next instructions a or b:
a) For drawing an ERD:
Scroll down the left menu to the item labelled Entity relationship.
Drag the first symbol in the raw for entity to the working area and continue adding the other entities.
Then one by one add attributes for each entity, indicating primary keys PKs and foreign keys FKs. If you
need more attributes/fields then increase or decrease the number of fields in the top left button. Once
you have finished the attributes you can now add the relationships. To draw a relationship, place the
cursor at the boundary of the entity on the One side of the relationship and drag it to the entity on the