Good tool for diagraming process and system components

Question

I'm currently writing some documentation for our product. Most of the docs are just text based - but in some cases I'd like to add a diagram to help first time users visualize the process from a general perspective. Microsoft docs and articles have these all over. I don't want to use a class diagram as the components are more conceptual - made up of multiple classes.

Is there a good tool for creating digrams for this type of situation?

UPDATE: I should clarify that this is not for UML/ER type work. This is for teaching concepts about the components involved (physical, conceptual and possibly classes).

Answer 1

If you're using Windows then Microsoft Visio is the obvious choice.

Answer 2

Since most companies have Microsft Office, I would suggest Word 2007 (The latest version). It is pretty good with shapes and lines. The shapes can hold text. I would put it on par with Visio, probably because I am not good with Visio at all.

Answer 3

OS X/Linux/Windows: The Gnome Project has Dia. (Seems to work on Windows, too) – Free Software.

OS X: OmniGraffle – Commercial

Answer 4

I personaly like star uml for a list of UML tools you may look here

Answer 5

Omnigraffle for os X.

Answer 6

well, i assumed that when you say the components are conceptual, you are looking for basic shapes for general purpose use.

Visio has a lot of shapes and connectors that you can find useful. If you MS Office, then Word has the Drawing toolbar with basic shapes as well.

You can also checkout OO with Custom Shapes.

Answer 7

I'm a fan of Argo UML for this kind of thing.

Also, a class diagram of conceptual classes is legal. The UML can be applied at any level of abstraction.

Answer 8

If you can afford it think of buying a commercial tool like MagicDraw. The best free alternative is yEd Graph Editor (all other free tools produce ugly diagrams that really suck). You can also try to use Microsoft Visio. But in my opinion its not the tool of choice when drawing diagrams for software development reasons.

Answer 9

Visio is capable of most heavy lifting requried for UML diagrams.

ER/Studio is awesome for database diagrams and documentation - it is capable of holding multiple diagrams for the same entity - logical, sub diagrams, multiple physical (with denormalization) and dimensional diagrams for your data warehouse and cubes.

Answer 10

What about turning ASCII-ART into Diagrams?