PC Plus Verdict: 10/10
For: Sophisticated business graphics. Includes object libraries. Integrates with Microsoft Office®.
Against: Nothing.
April 1995 - SmartDraw PC Plus Gold Award - Anyone who wants professional quality illustrations in their documents but can't justify the investment of time and money on a high powered graphics program could be in luck. SmartDraw (no relation to Colin Messitt's Smart series) may be what you are looking for. It's an easy-to-use Windows-based drawing program especially designed for creating business diagrams, flow charts, custom maps, signs and the like. The program comes with libraries of ready-made symbols and shapes, plus a variety of configurable textual backgrounds and other effects. In the registered version, there is a 100-page printed manual with over 100 clip art examples and templates.
The author claims you don't need to be an artist to get high-class results, and that's borne out in practice. You begin by selecting a suitable background, adjusting colours as required (transparent backgrounds are also available) and then drag and drop shapes or other objects on to this, connecting them with lines also selected from the storehouse. You can add text anywhere in any installed font, size, or colour, with your shapes expanding automatically to accommodate it. You can also resize, move and recolour objects together, or one at a time, with any connecting lines automatically adjusting to your layout.
All this is straightforward, and if you're used to more traditional drawing programs you'll be surprised at how quickly SmartDraw lets you put together your diagrams.
