When you get lots of information in a database and want to quickly analyze all these elements, you may need to draw an entity relationship diagram. With ER diagrams or ER models, you can better understand the relationship between entities. This post explains what an entity relationship diagram is and shares three great entity relationship diagram tools for you to easily construct a relational and logical structure of a database.
An entity-relationship (ER) diagram, also known as an entity-relationship model, is a type of flowchart that illustrates relationships among people, objects, places, concepts, or events within a system. It can use data modeling techniques to design or debug the foundation for a relational database. Entity relationship diagrams can help define business processes, software engineering, education, research, and more.
Entity relationship diagrams focus on the relationships of elements within entities instead of relationships between entities themselves. They are displayed in a grammatical structure. You can take entities as nouns and relationships as verbs. An ER diagram is created by a defined set of symbols like rectangles, diamonds, ovals, and connecting lines.
An entity relationship diagram offers a visual starting point for database design and helps you determine information system requirements within an organization. This part introduces you to 3 online entity relationship diagram tools. You can check their key features and then pick your preferred one to create your ER diagrams.
MindOnMap is a popular and all-featured online diagramming tool that can help you draw your ideas visually. It can work as a free entity relationship diagram tool to draw ER diagrams with ease. MindOnMap collects many useful themes and templates for you to quickly start your ER diagram drawing. You can use this entity relationship diagram tool on any web browser, including Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. It allows you to draw entity relationship diagrams on Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android devices.
When you want to make an entity relationship diagram, you can directly go to the official MindOnMap website and then click the Create Your Mind Map button to start. You can scroll down to use a suitable template, theme, or example to start creating your entity relationship diagram.
Many frequently-used tools are offered to customize style, theme, icon, outline, and more. You can freely add nodes, sub-nodes, and components and insert images, links, comments, and other elements to draw your ER diagram. It also gives you a convenient way to share or export your created diagram. You are allowed to save it as a JPG/PNG/SVG image, Word file, or PDF file or generate a sharing link.
Lucidchart ER diagram tool is a popular online diagramming application that enables you to make diagramming, data visualization, and collaboration. It can help you conceptualize your database design before you build an entity relationship diagram. You can easily create ER diagrams online to design, patch, or debug relational databases based on your need. Lucidchart provides you with dedicated shape libraries and standard ERD symbols.
Lucidchart ER diagram tool gives you a simple way to differentiate relationships, entities, and their attributes. You can use its tools to quickly indicate the cardinality and ordinality of each entity. This online entity relationship diagram tool can also generate ER diagrams automatically. You can handily draw your ER diagram from scratch or customize a selected template with the right symbols and notations you like. When you use a free Lucidchart plan, you get three editable documents, 60 shapes per document, and 100 templates. Also, you can choose to upgrade to a paid plan to access more features.
SmartDraw ER Diagram Tool can help you draw ER diagrams automatically and visualize your database. It collects many built-in ERD symbols to help you create entity relationship diagrams easily. It is equipped with many relevant notations and powerful tools. It allows you to use its intelligent pop-up menu of ERD symbols to connect shapes to new shapes and define cardinality with its ERD cardinality selector. When you want to draw an ER diagram, you can navigate to the SmartDraw ER Diagram Tool page and click on the Create Your ER Diagram button to do.
SmartDraw can work well with many other apps, including Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Confluence, Jira, and more. You can easily add your entity relationship diagrams to them. Moreover, you are allowed to import a CSV of your table definitions from your server and then use the Automatic ERD Database Extension in SmartDraw to build ER diagram.
Can I make an entity relationship diagram in Word?
Microsoft Word is not designed for creating various diagrams. But it has an Insert feature for you to build an entity relationship diagram using the shapes provided by Word. When you open Word, you can click on the Insert tab, choose the SmartArt option to select a suitable template, and then start making your ER diagram from scratch.
What are the symbols used in ER diagram?
Entity relationship diagrams mainly contain three basic symbols, rectangle, oval, and diamond. These entity relationship diagram symbols and notations can represent relationships between elements, entities, and attributes.
Where to find useful entity relationship diagram examples?
You can go to some online ER diagram tools to get some useful examples. Also, you can directly search for entity relationship diagram examples on the internet to locate them quickly. For instance, you can check the search results on Google Chrome and go to its Images tab to check lots of read-made ER diagram examples.
Conclusion
We have mainly talked about the entity relationship diagram in this post. After reading this post, you can learn the entity relationship diagram definition and how to draw your ER diagrams with three online entity relationship diagram tools.
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