Review: Smartdraw 2007 design software

Smartdraw isn’t designed for drawing sketches of Lamborghinis or isometric diagrams of your house. What it is good at is any of the day-to-day diagrams and schematics you’re likely to need, working in a business or home office. These include flowcharts, floor plans, flyers and forms, but around 16 other categories, as well.

Smartdraw 2007 is designed for constructing diagrams from pre-designed components, in much the same way Microsoft’s Visio does. You can select and drag individual components, such as chairs on a floor plan or resistors in a circuit diagram, from a browser on the left-hand side of the editing screen. Alternatively, you can click to select and then stamp multiple copies onto a page.

Connectors are intelligent enough to join specific points on the objects you select and to move and stretch to keep them connected, when they’re repositioned. There are some aspects of the program that aren’t obvious, though, and the online help isn’t always helpful. Smarthelp, offers tutorials and explanations but has limited topics. Also, the main user guide is a PDF, which isn’t as easily searchable as a Windows help file.

The Smartdraw 2007 version of the software includes several new features and redesigns. Smartpanels, which open up whenever you start a new diagram, offer key tools specific to a given type of diagram, such as arrowheads and ‘line hops’ in flowcharts. These panels are easier to use than a series of toolbars, as the tools are divided into categories – a bit like Microsoft Office 2007’s ribbon.

There’s a new range of professionally designed styles – borders, colours and fonts – which can be applied with a single click to individual elements in a diagram or complete groups. The Smartdraw graphics engine has been revised to give smoother gradients and shadows and new effects like glow and shadow improve the look of your drawings.

The program is well integrated with Microsoft Office and exports directly to Word, Excel and PowerPoint. It can create PDF files too. For quick and simple diagrams, in many forms of the business and home office world, it stands out for exceptional ease of use.

Free demo of Smartdraw 2007

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