How to Make a Genogram in Word
The editor below is loaded with a five-person single-parent family — the size of diagram people usually attempt in Word. Edit it, then export a PNG and insert that into your document.
Drag people to arrange. Click a person to edit their details.
Editable preview — your changes aren't saved here.
- Add people with the ▢ ◯ ◇ buttons, then click the canvas.
- Use Connect… for marriages, children, and emotional lines.
- Click a person to edit name, years, deceased, notes.
- Drag to arrange, or hit Auto-arrange.
- Export as PNG or PDF — the legend builds itself.
Includes a title block and an auto-generated legend of the symbols you used.
Your genogram autosaves in your browser. Get our symbol cheat sheet + templates by email so you can pick it up anywhere:
How many shapes it actually is
The example above is deliberately small — five people, three generations, no marriages — and it is still 11 separate objects: five person shapes, four child connectors and two relationship overlay lines. In Word each of those is a shape you insert, size, position and then re-position, and none of them stay attached to each other.
The count is the real argument, because it does not scale the way people expect. The four-generation example on the Mac software page is nine people and 20 objects; the family-therapy sample on the therapy page is nine people and 21, because adding the emotional layer adds lines without adding anyone. Doubling the family more than doubles the drawing work, and every one of those objects has to be nudged by hand when you decide the grandparents should sit higher up the page.
The shapes-and-connectors method, step by step
1. Set the page to landscape
Layout > Orientation > Landscape, and widen the margins. A genogram is wider than it is tall, and starting in portrait guarantees a rebuild later.
2. Draw the person symbols
Insert > Shapes. A square is a man, a circle is a woman, a diamond is unknown or non-binary. Hold Shift while dragging so they come out square and round rather than rectangular and oval, and make the first one the size you want, then copy-paste it for every other person so they all match.
3. Add names and dates
Type directly into each shape for the name, or place a separate text box underneath for the name and birth-death years. Text inside the shape is easier to keep aligned; a text box below reads better on a crowded page.
4. Connect partners
Draw a straight line between the two symbols for a marriage. For divorce, add two short diagonal slashes across it; for separation, one. Word has no built-in mark for these, so they are lines you draw and group with the union line.
5. Drop lines to children
Draw a line down from the middle of the union line, then a horizontal sibling bar, then a vertical line down to each child. Dash the vertical for an adopted child and dot it for a foster child using Format Shape > Line > Dash type.
6. Mark deaths and the index person
A death is a diagonal cross drawn over the symbol — two lines, grouped with it. The index person, the one the genogram is about, gets a second outline just inside the first.
7. Group everything before you move anything
Select all, then Group. Word's shapes do not stay attached to each other, so an ungrouped diagram comes apart the moment you drag one person or the text above it reflows.
What Word cannot do
- Keep lines attached. Move a person and their union and drop lines stay where they were. This is the single biggest time cost, and it is why grouping early matters.
- Auto-arrange generations. There is no concept of a generation row, so alignment is manual — and misaligned rows are the most common reason a hand-drawn genogram reads as sloppy.
- Build a legend. A marked genogram needs a key for whatever notation it uses. In Word that is another table you write and maintain by hand.
- Do the emotional layer well. Close, fused, distant, conflict and cutoff lines cross the diagram diagonally and need distinct styles and colours. Drawing zigzags by hand in Word is where most people give up.
The faster route
Build the diagram in the editor above or on the genogram maker home page, export a PNG, and Insert > Pictures in Word. The export carries a title block and a legend generated from the notation you actually used, so the image is self-explanatory inside your document. Nothing is uploaded and there is no signup — see free genogram maker for what that covers.
If you would rather work from a ready structure, the genogram template page lists the prefilled starting points and genogram examples shows finished ones. For the notation itself, use the genogram key or the fuller genogram symbols reference. The general build guide, independent of Word, is how to make a genogram, and if what you were actually asked for is a family tree rather than a genogram, read genogram vs family tree first.
Genogram in Word FAQ
›Does Word have a genogram template?
No. Word ships no genogram shapes, no genogram SmartArt and no genogram template, so anything described as a Word genogram template is a document someone drew by hand out of ordinary shapes and lines. That is why they are usually rigid: the shapes are positioned absolutely and adding one more sibling means moving everything.
›Can I use SmartArt for a genogram?
Not really. SmartArt hierarchy charts can express parent-to-child, but a genogram also needs partner lines between people on the same row, dashed and dotted drop lines, deceased crosses, and an emotional-relationship layer running diagonally across the diagram. None of those exist in SmartArt, so you end up drawing over it, which is worse than starting with plain shapes.
›How do I put a genogram into a Word document?
Build it in a genogram editor, export a PNG, and use Insert > Pictures in Word. The image keeps its notation and legend, prints correctly, and does not come apart when the surrounding text reflows. If you have to edit it later you edit it in the builder and paste a new image in.
›What size should the image be?
Export at the highest resolution you have available and let Word scale it down; scaling a small image up is what makes genograms in coursework unreadable. On a landscape page a three-generation diagram sits comfortably at about 24 cm wide.
›Is drawing it in Word ever the right call?
For a two- or three-person illustration inside a document you are already writing, yes — the overhead of switching tools is not worth it. Past about six people, or the moment you need dashed placement lines or an emotional layer, hand-drawing in Word costs more time than it saves.