Lucidchart’s templates are an easy and fast way to design professional diagrams.
The best place to explore our available templates is our template gallery.
You can access it in the “My Documents” view by clicking on “More Templates” or
on the triangle next to the “New Document” button.
Once you’ve opened up the gallery, there’s a few different ways to search for templates.
Select one of the categories listed on the left to browse or use the search bar at the
top.
To get a closer look at a template, click on the thumbnail to open a preview of the
template and a short description listing its main features and use case.
We’ve got a wide range of templates available––over 600!––but there’s a few main types to
look for: Some are blank canvases with pre-selected shape libraries, so you can freely create
while still having quick access to the shapes you need.
Others have some colored shapes, lines, and suggestions for how to fill them out.
These make diagramming a quick and painless process.
We also have detailed examples that are filled in with content, linked to sample data, or
fully constructed using other advanced features––these examples model how to make your diagrams look
professional and polished, help you learn how to use more complex features in Lucidchart,
and follow best industry practices.
Let’s dive into one of these templates and show you how they can help you see more and
do more.
Every template comes equipped with shape libraries and a resource bar.
The shape libraries are on the left side of the canvas in the tool box.
These will have the shapes you need to build this particular diagram.
To browse the shapes available in Lucidchart, click on the shape library manager.
The resource bar is next to the canvas and includes a description, instructions for how
to customize the template, and additional links at the bottom.
Click on any of these resources to get extra help.
In addition to replacing any of the text, colors or line styles on the diagram, you
can also customize linked data and any conditional formatting rules.
First, let’s look at the data linked to this template.
Click on the “view the data source for this 5S practice” button in the resource bar
to make a copy of the data.
From here, you can edit the spreadsheet.
To connect your copy of the data to the template, go back to the Lucidchart document, go to
the data panel in the dock here to the right, click on the “manage data” icon, and select
“replace data set”.
If you didn’t change the format of the spreadsheet, the data should still be matched to the shapes.
If you add any data, you’ll have to add more shapes and drag out the additional rows
of data into the shapes.
Another option is to upload your own data sheet, after which you’ll have to manually
add your data to the shapes.
Once you’ve linked data, you can also update or change the existing conditional formatting
rules.
Conditional formatting is helpful because it highlights key points of data without cluttering
up your diagram with lots of text.
In this example, we chose to highlight the criteria’s scores.
To make changes, go to the dock and click on the conditional formatting tab.
One quick tip here about color matching: To match color in a template, use the eyedropper
tool, hover over the color you want to match, and click on it.
We could also duplicate this rule to quickly create more rules.
Here’s a few more tips to make the most of any template: You may notice that each
new shape you drag out of a shape library is formatted a specific way.
This is because the default shape style has been set to match the most commonly used shape
in this template.
To change the default formatting, get the formatting just right on one shape, right-click
that shape, and then select “Set default style.”
If you want to quickly make changes to all the shapes, lines, or text on the canvas,
go to “Select” in the menu bar, and then you’ll be able to make changes in a snap
rather than having to click on each individual shape or line.
Once you’ve made all the adjustments you want to a template, don’t forget to share
it with others or better yet, show off your work by creating a quick presentation right
in Lucidchart.
If you liked this template, make sure to check out our other templates to learn how Lucidchart
can help you see more and do more.