How to make an org chart in Canva
Canva makes a good-looking org chart in ten minutes, and its own help page is honest about how: pick a template, replace the placeholder names, drag shapes to add people. That is a drawing, and a drawing is right on the day it is made. Here are Canva's steps, where the drawing stops, and what the same chart looks like when it is drawn from a list of people instead.
Drawn from a list, here
Canva's own steps
From the Canva help centre article on creating an organizational chart.
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Start a whiteboard
From the homepage, select Whiteboard. Open the Design panel and search "Organizational Chart" or "Org Chart". Select a layout that matches your team's structure and add it to the whiteboard.
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Replace the placeholders
Replace the placeholder names and roles with your team's details. Double-click a label to edit the text.
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Add and rearrange
Drag out shapes to add new team members or departments. Click and drag elements to restructure the chart. Use the Elements panel for icons or annotations, and colour to represent teams, levels or functions.
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Share, or export
Share to invite collaborators, with permissions to view, comment or edit. Or export it as a PNG or a PDF, or turn it into a presentation.
What it's good for
A chart that has to look like the rest of your material. Canva's templates, icons and brand colours make a six-person team on a slide look designed, with photos and a background, in less time than it takes to open a diagramming tool. For a one-off — an event, a pitch, a welcome pack — that is the right trade.
Sharing is simple, and view, comment and edit permissions are the same three you would want.
Where it stops
Read Canva's steps again and notice what is not in them: a step where you give it the list of people. The chart is a template you edit by hand, one placeholder at a time. Forty people are forty shapes to drag out and label; a reorg is dragging them again; a person who works for two managers gets a line you draw yourself, and an open role is a box you remember to update. Nothing tells the chart who reports to whom, so nothing can lay it out for you, keep it current, or check it.
That is fine for a drawing. It is the reason the chart of a company that changes should not be one.
The list way
The same chart, from two columns instead of forty shapes.
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Two columns
Name, and who they report to. Title and department if you have them; a Dotted line column for a second manager; a Staff column for an assistant; an Employment type of open for a vacancy. The templates have every column filled in as an example.
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Import it
Drop in the spreadsheet, paste the cells, or import a PDF or a screenshot of an old chart. Managers are matched by name, "Last, First" and typos included, and every guess is listed before it is applied.
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Let it lay itself out
The layout engine places every card, stacks wide teams, folds departments, and redraws around each change you make. Dotted lines, staff cards and vacancies are drawn from the data, not placed by hand.
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Take the picture when you need it
PNG for free, with a small footer line; PDF, SVG and an editable PowerPoint with a pass or a plan. Or share a link and let people look at the live chart.
Side by side
| Org chart in Canva | orgchart.live | |
|---|---|---|
| Starts from | A whiteboard template with placeholder names | A spreadsheet, one row per person |
| Adding a person | Drag out a shape, type the name | Add a row, or drag a card |
| Someone with two managers | A line you draw | A dotted line, from a column |
| Open roles, assistants, contractors | Boxes you label yourself | Drawn as such, from the data |
| When things change | Drag the shapes around | Change the row; the chart redraws |
| Working together | Share with view, comment or edit | Live editing with cursors; view links need no account |
| Looks | Canva's templates, icons and brand colours | One clean style, department colours |
| Getting it out | PNG or PDF, or turned into a presentation | PNG free; PDF, SVG and editable PowerPoint on a pass or plan |
| Cost | Canva calls its org chart maker free; some templates carry a Pro mark | Free to build; exports beyond PNG need a pass or a plan |
Canva facts from Canva's help centre and product pages, read on 5 September 2026. Canva Pro's price is not repeated here because it was not on those pages. If Canva adds a step that reads a list of people, this page is wrong until it is updated.
Questions people ask
- How do I make an org chart in Canva?
- Canva's help centre gives the steps: from the homepage, select Whiteboard; open the Design panel; search "Organizational Chart" or "Org Chart"; pick a layout that matches your team and add it to the whiteboard. Then replace the placeholder names and roles, drag out shapes to add people or departments, double-click a label to edit it, and drag elements to restructure. Icons come from the Elements panel, and Share invites collaborators with view, comment or edit permissions.
- Can Canva build an org chart from Excel or a list of people?
- Not that its instructions describe. Canva's own steps for an org chart are replacing placeholder names and dragging shapes; nothing in them reads a spreadsheet of people and managers. A chart of forty people is forty shapes to place and label by hand, and every reorg is done the same way.
- Is the Canva org chart maker free?
- Canva describes its org chart maker as free, and its template gallery marks some templates as Pro. What you pay with is time: the chart is a drawing, so it costs as much to change as it did to make.
- Can I move my Canva org chart here?
- There is no reader for Canva files, but there are two quick routes. Type the names and who they report to into two columns and import that. Or take a screenshot of the Canva chart and import the image: it is read into a chart, with every guess listed for you to check before it lands.
- When is Canva the better choice?
- When the chart is a small one-off and its look matters more than its upkeep: a team of six on a slide for an event, in brand colours, with photos. When it is the chart of a company that changes, the drawing becomes a chore, and a chart drawn from a list is the one that stays right.
Keep the list. Let the chart draw itself.
Type the names and who they report to into two columns, or take them from your HR system, and import them. The chart is drawn from the rows, redraws when they change, and is free to build at any size.