SmartDraw 6 Professional Plus Review Big Workspace, Small Manual Eric Grevstad
Actually, the Professional Plus version comes on two CDs (one for the program, one for overflow libraries and templates), with a "Getting Started" pamphlet that's barely longer than the 28-character serial number you must type to activate the program. If you want detailed documentation, you can pore through or print out a 254-page user's guide supplied in Adobe Acrobat PDF format (merely scanned pages, with no bookmarks or links). We think the combination of a skinny printed guide and whopping online one means most users will ignore the latter; luckily, they'll be reasonably well served by SmartDraw's online tutorials and pop-up help screens.
When you start the program, you're given the usual choice of starting from scratch or opening an existing document -- drawings are stored in a proprietary format (a file viewer is free for the download), with plenty of graphic and PDF export options available. A handy menu helps you narrow the near-infinite choices for new documents, with each category or class opening a different section of the hierarchical list of templates and examples in the "SmartDraw Explorer" window that appears at the left of the screen.
As you move the mouse pointer over Explorer items, pop-up previews show both ready-made documents and sets of document elements -- libraries or symbol palettes -- which you double-click to open. The palettes, like the toolbars atop the display, offer shapes or symbols which you can drag into the workspace or drawing area. This design makes for a crowded screen, especially if you leave up the "SD Advisor" tips-and-tutorials window that floats at the right -- SmartDraw is the first program in a while to make us feel cramped at 1,024 by 768 resolution -- but does give easy access to everything you need.
The drawing area is anything but cramped -- it's fixed at 50 by 50 inches, divided by dotted lines into a grid of pages for your printer. Oddly, there's no way to specify a smaller workspace, even when (as often) you're making an org chart or other drawing meant to fit on a single page, so the crowded screen plus just-the-corner-of-a-huge-field work area means you'll spend a lot of time fussing with the view and zoom controls. The latter come in handy when tweaking short lines or small items, since it can be tricky to learn which of several "handles" you're grabbing to resize or reposition an object with the mouse, although dotted preview lines and multi-level undo are much appreciated.
But once you get used to these interface details, SmartDraw lives up to its promise to make charting simple, with drag-and-drop positioning of a vast variety of boxes, shapes, and lines including an "automatic connector" that draws links as needed as you add or reposition boxes on an org chart. The program doesn't have an image editor for imported bitmaps as Visio does (unless you spend another $69 for SmartDraw Photo), but it has more colorful symbols and clip art.
And frankly, while full-time pros will probably stick with Visio for detailed wiring diagrams or architectural layouts, lots of everyday business users can enjoy SmartDraw's templates with little or no modification -- whether a company org chart, project timeline or Gantt chart, simple monthly calendar, or office layout waiting for you to rearrange chairs and file cabinets.
Often, you may not even bother to save or print your finished drawing, but just copy and paste it into a Word or PowerPoint document. Since SmartDraw Professional is an OLE client, you can double-click the embedded drawing to edit it -- or reverse the process, clicking toolbar icons to embed an Excel table or WordArt title into a SmartDraw drawing.
Overall, SmartDraw 6 Professional -- we'd opt for the Professional edition with the business/charting and maybe one other library purchased a la carte, rather than paying for every available set with Professional Plus -- is a likable way to dive into drawing and diagramming without getting over your head. If charts and diagrams are adjuncts to your presentations rather than a big part of your job description, it's a right-sized, right-priced solution.
