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First look: SmartDraw 7 Suite
By Chuck Frey
Over the years, SmartDraw has impressed me with its many powerful features and ease of use. SmartDraw 7, the latest iteration of this excellent visual diagramming tool, adds dozens of new features that are designed to automate common tasks and improve your productivity with it.
In this "first look" article, we will focus on the latest improvements and new features added to SmartDraw, with a special emphasis on those that will help you to diagram ideas, business processes and project management.
What's new in SmartDraw 7
Here are some of the most notable improvements and new features included in SmartDraw 7:
New wizards: SmartDraw 7 includes more than 30 new "wizards" that walk users through common tasks, step by step. These wizards are especially helpful to new users, enabling them to become productive with SmartDraw seven more quickly. However, if you're expecting the usual "fill-in-the-blanks" wizards that automate the production of certain types of charts or graphs, you may be a bit disappointed. What SmartDraw 7 actually provides is a series of brief, step-by-step tutorials, which are displayed in the left-hand column of the user interface.
Interface improvements: SmartDraw 7 features a revised and streamlined interface, which provides fingertip access to more of the tools you need it when creating a chart or drawing. For example, the toolbar now contains text formatting options (fonts, color, size, etc.). You can also modify a shape's border and color right from the toolbar; in previous versions of SmartDraw, you needed to dive into the program's menus to change these settings. In addition, you can customize the toolbar with up to 3 of your favorite shapes.
Layers: Objects can now be placed on layers in SmartDraw 7. Tabs at the bottom of the workspace make it easy to move between layers, make them visible or invisible, and clickable or not clickable. This may come in particularly useful if you're working with complex charts, or if you want to embed a table or Excel file into your document but don't want to risk messing up a chart that you have created. Just put them on separate layers.
Customize your symbol libraries: Symbol libraries can now be dragged around the workspace, and rearranged to suit your needs. Or, if you prefer, you can keep them docked on the left side of the workspace, which is their default placement. You can also rearrange symbols within a library, placing the ones that you use most frequently at the top for faster access.
Template browser: A new template browser enables you to view thumbnail images of the program's templates, giving you a visual representation of all the resources that are available to you when creating a new drawing.
Find files faster: An enhanced welcome dialog displays thumbnail images of all of your SmartDraw files, making it easier for you to find the one you're looking for.
Flowchart automation: SmartDraw 7 makes it easy to connect shapes automatically when building a flowchart. All you have to do is drag a symbol next to another symbol and a line automatically connects them.
Org chart builder: In SmartDraw 7, you can now automatically build an organizational chart by importing a tab-indented text file or an ID-formatted text file (such as a .csv file) containing your information. Other new organizational chart features include the ability to adjust shapes and lines with a single click and automatically resize all shapes in your chart to the same size. As with flowcharts, you can drag and drop symbols onto your org chart, and SmartDraw 7 will automatically connect them to your existing diagram. I found this feature to be a somewhat confusing, however. When I dragged a new symbol close to my existing chart, it behaved differently, depending upon where I placed it. When I dragged it to the bottom layer of an org chart, SmartDraw displayed an anchor where it will be added. But when I tried to add a symbol to the middle level of an org chart, the program wouldn’t let me add it to the right or left of the existing boxes at that level. I found this behavior to be somewhat erratic and confusing. This isn't a huge deal, but it just isn't as intuitive as I think it should be.
Improved Gantt charts: Gantt charts, used to visually represent project timelines, are easier to draw in SmartDraw 7, thanks to special bars that snap into place on your chart. The program also provides helpful wizards to assist you in building Gantt charts, timelines and calendars.
Who should use SmartDraw 7?
If your job involves project management, quality management or improving any kind of business or manufacturing process, SmartDraw 7 can help you to quickly and efficiently produce process flow diagrams, org charts, fishbone diagrams, GANTT charts and much more. If you only need to occasionally produce these types of diagrams, you’ll appreciate SmartDraw’s easy learning curve and affordable price compared to high-end diagramming tools like Visio.
Conclusion
If you have never used a visual diagramming software program before, SmartDraw 7 is an excellent choice. Its ease of use and intuitive interface is the best I’ve seen, and it offers numerous tips and resources for first-time users. If you’re currently using SmartDraw 6, you’ll find that the changes in SmartDraw 7 are incremental, rather than radical. Still, version 7 will help existing SmartDraw users to be more productive through more intelligent toolbars and the ability to totally customize your symbol libraries, so that the shapes and connectors you use most often are listed first.
SmartDraw 7 Suite, which contains the entire collection of symbol libraries, can be purchased from the SmartDraw website for $297; an upgrade version from any earlier version of Smart Draw to the current SmartDraw Suite costs only $99. New in version 7 are specialized, lower-cost ($198) versions of SmartDraw, which are available in Flowchart, Org Chart, Gantt Chart, Floor Plan and Technical Editions. You can also download a trial version of SmartDraw 7 Suite from the developer’s website. If you haven’t tried SmartDraw before, now is the time. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at its excellent combination of powerful features and ease of use!
Published on 12/29/2004
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