Technologies are described herein for providing a dynamic preview of diagram elements to be inserted into a flowchart or other diagram. Through the use of the embodiments presented herein, a diagramming application program displays a preview of diagram elements to be inserted into a diagram by an element insertion control on a drawing canvas when a cursor is placed over the element insertion control for threshold period of time. The preview is displayed until the mouse cursor is moved away from the element insertion control or the element insertion control is selected.