Microsoft Office Reference Guide

Mar 26, 2004

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I’ve been aware of the SmartDraw product for some time, and mistakenly considered it a competitor of Visio — without the database features of Custom Properties, the Shape Sheet and other features that make Visio a powerful tool.

At PowerPoint LIVE 2008, when I finally gave the new SmartDraw 2009 a chance, I understood that it is not meant to compete with Visio.

Instead, SmartDraw is a unique program with a feature set of its own that deserves to be evaluated by anyone — especially in IT — who needs to document, diagram or otherwise communicate complex ideas.

SmartDraw is extremely efficient and effective for flowcharts, storyboards and other types of powerful diagrams to communicate complex information visually and not necessary mathematically or in precise technical detail.

It’s more of a “big picture” tool — and keep that in mind when we discuss storyboarding and brainstorming, which are two of its really strong suits.

A big reason I also wanted to try SmartDraw were its new integration tools with MS Office.

In the new interface, you will notice that SmartDraw has buttons to send diagrams directly to PowerPoint, as well as Word, Excel, as well as WordPerfect or PDF format.

It’s also interesting that the program has adopted the Ribbon concept, and added Themes and Galleries to its feature set.

Figure 1

In terms of sending diagrams to PowerPoint, SmartDraw now also has a system for Sequencing or animating diagrams which will follow the diagram into your slide, and have it appear item by item, allowing the presenter to tell the story behind the visual more effectively.

PowerPoint has its own tab on the Ribbon, and within that window you can sequence — or assign an entry order number — to any item in your diagram, thereby building it within the slide in PowerPoint.

You can preview the sequence within SmartDraw before exporting the diagram directly to PowerPoint.

Figure 2

IProbably the most impressive aspect of SmartDraw is the incredibly rich and varied array of templates with which it comes. (Here it rivals even Visio). What makes it more delicious for a visual presenter or even a technician who wants to document complex ideas are the supplementary windows with descriptions of the diagrams, samples and other relevant Help information.

Figure 3

In the Project Management area — relevant to IT — there are Gantt charts, Timelines and again an array of example charts that can be modified for your own use.

Figure 4

IWhat really got me jazzed about SmartDraw, however, was its speed — in many ways it is a premier mind-mapping or conceptualization tool. (I covered Mind Mapping in a previous update). Let me explain.

One of the big problems for PowerPoint users especially, but any presenter, is opening a program instead of thinking about the message. Typically the user gets bogged down in adding slides, or drawing objects, rather than letting the mind free flow and brainstorm in the way described by Nancy Duarte in Slide:ology.

Instead before you know it you’re aligning shapes or adding fills and your creative process has stalled.

For this purpose SmartDraw has a new diagram type called the Storyboard — and it is almost as fast as sketching by hand with the added advantage of then exporting the material directly to PowerPoint.

Figure 5

IThe really cool aspect of the Storyboard diagram is that shapes can be added instantly without the mouse or the “SmartPanel.”

Instead, you use the CTRL + (Arrow) keys to instantly add your shapes to any existing shapes, thereby building your diagram literally as you think.

IFigure 6

In this way you can spec out an entire presentation within a single diagram or slide. (An anticipated update of SmartDraw is expected to expand this feature — so that the storyboard will automatically generate a set of slides and not comprise an individual diagram — in much the same way sending an Outline from Word to PowerPoint used to create slides based on its hierarchy — with main headlines becoming titles and subheads becoming bullets beneath those titles.

Presumably the SmartDraw Storyboard will similarly create PowerPoint slides based on its content; however, at this point it is not yet available.)

Figure 7

IYou can, however, currently export a .TXT outline of the storyboard that could easily be converted to a Word Outline in the manner described in the Outlining update I recently wrote.

Figure 8

IBesides the vast amount of installed templates that come with SmartDraw 2009, there are also additional detailed packages for Medical and Legal users available for an extra charge.

What’s worth adding about SmartDraw, and hard to describe, besides the breadth of its templates and simplicity or ease of use is something unusual about software — “likeability.”

Besides the normal components of a product web site, for example, the SmartDraw site is like a community (a common claim but actually true with this product) where end users talk about their experiences in testimonials and a blog.

The blog goes beyond the usual how-to use software issues and discusses real business goals and scenarios; the most current entry was how to address the recession with software tools.

There is also a very active forum where issues relating to the program and related software (how to save to Visio, for example) are discussed by end users and experts.

For Office users business graphics generally mean PowerPoint or Visio, or more recently (in Office 2007) the SmartArt diagrams — but business communicators really owe it to themselves to take a close look at SmartDraw.

The problem with many diagramming tools is that you just spend too much time learning the tool and not enough freely creating your ideas. SmartDraw addresses this very point — the tool is streamlined and user friendly enough to let anyone create visually effective flowcharts, charts, timelines, maps and all sorts of types of process diagrams with relative ease.

InformIT Articles and Sample Chapters

Creating a Visio Flowchart

Playing Well with Others Using Visio

Books and eBooks

Visio 2007 for Dummies (Safari)

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