by Dale Farris, President, Golden Triangle PC Club
March 2001

SmartDraw 5 Professional Plus is a drag and drop drawing program that is now exclusively marketed through the Internet. SmartDraw 5 Professional Plus is aimed at users who need to create a diagram, flow chart, or other business drawing, but do not have the time to learn the features in more complex drawing programs on the market. SmartDraw 5 Professional Plus is SmartDraw.com's most complete version of this neat program. See below for the other editions that are also available.

For diagrams or other business-related drawings, SmartDraw is ideal for busy professionals needing to very quickly drag and drop selected shapes, symbols, or lines to a drawing area, and then format these shapes with text and other highlighting features that are also supported in the program. The program includes hundreds of add-on symbol libraries containing thousands of symbols suitable for software diagrams, network diagrams, floor plans, circuit diagrams, maps, organization charts, presentations, forms, and many other drawings.

Also note that SmartDraw also supports additional symbol libraries developed by outside vendors, such as NetZoom. See below for more information about these additional symbols that can be added to SmartDraw.

The symbols from the built-in libraries, as well as the ones you choose to add, can be easily dragged into drawings from a floating toolbar called a Library window. The basic, Standard edition of SmartDraw contains 1,000 symbols and examples, and the Professional edition adds more than 1,100 extra symbols in the Business & Charting collection. The Professional Plus edition contains over 33,000 symbols in all 9 collections. While each is priced differently, the very reasonable price point for the Professional Plus edition means you have little reason not to go ahead and start with the fully featured edition of this super program. 

Professional Features

Spell checker
Advanced import and export filters (Professional Plus edition)
OLE client support
Microsoft Office companion
Global search and replace
Drag and drop drawing
Automatic connecting lines
Automatic formatting
Automatic text entry
Automatic alignment and sizing
Tables support
Timelines support
Software diagramming
Organizational charting
Forms support
Styles and presentation effects

What's New in Version 5?

Draw web pages more easily - HTML support and scale without distortion
Draw organization charts more easily
Draw to scale more easily - automatically scale shapes to a drawing
Draw circuit diagrams more easily
Build your own symbol libraries more easily
New SmartDraw Explorer - catalog of libraries, templates and examples
SmartDraw previews and on-demand install - to save hard disk space
Drop shapes on lines

Operational Features

SmartDraw has value for just about any organization or business, along with personal use in small office/home office situations. You can design anything from a garden, family tree map, or competitive bid estimate, to a complex business process. There are dozens of pre-built templates in the Professional Plus edition, all organized by category and easily found in the included Explorer-type interface. Some of the templates include block diagrams, engineering diagrams, floor plans, flow charts, flyers, forms, maps, networks, trees, and timelines. The miscellaneous category even includes a crime-scene template.

The basic technique is to drag and drop a shape and connectors from the toolbar onto the drawing area. There are also specialized shapes, like walls, doors, windows, or chairs, that could be used in designing the layout of an office environment. Menu options let you add color and text to shapes and lines.

You can create and save new shapes as well as rotate shapes, symbols, and imported objects to any angle. You can use the snap-to grids, automatic sizing, and alignment tools to further enhance the layout and arrangement of the symbols on the drawing. Objects and groups of objects keep their connections intact when moved, and when you add or delete elements, connectors are automatically added or deleted.

You can now also use export filters for .GIF and .JPEG images, and there is an option for adding interleaving and transparency for Web pages. The print preview feature allows you to see what the diagram will look like, before you send the file to the printer.

The Automatic Dimensioning tool labels selected lines with their lengths, and when you rescale a drawing, the labels are updated automatically. In addition, the program now provides powerful text entering, editing, and formatting tools that will save time when needing to textually fill a shape. The selections for the shapes of the beginning and ending points of lines (arrowheads, for example) are also well developed, offering more options than I suspect most users would ever need.

With the new ability to open .VSD (Visio) and .WMF file formats, this further expands SmartDraw's importance, especially in business or manufacturing where other drawing programs that support these file types may also exist. SmartDraw now allows a user to save files in various other file formats, including .BMP, .TIF, .GIF, .JPEG, .EPS, .CGM, .DXF, .HGL, .DRW, as well as .PDF. This expanded file interchangeability is an important feature, as various businesses can now consider integrating this program into their fully developed lineup of already supported software.

In addition, because of their choice of the Internet as a distribution channel, a great deal of effort was applied to making SmartDraw very user-friendly and self-explanatory. Automatic help screens called New User Hints pop up when you try something new or make a mistake, and once you feel more confident, you can switch off these hints. All versions come with built-in Tool Tips that show the meaning of toolbar buttons when your mouse hovers over the button.

While SmartDraw does seem similar in features to Microsoft Visio or Micrografx Flowcharter, SmartDraw will be a refreshing new option, especially for those who may have felt intimidated by the overly complex interface of these other programs.

Importance of SmartDraw in the Quality Market

SmartDraw 5 Professional Plus is an excellent example of the rapidly growing designing and diagramming genre of the software market. For any company committed to the genuine meaning of the total quality process, using the various quality tools in the workplace has become common, and now these newly emerging software drawing tools are also being fully integrated in the work of quality teams. SmartDraw represents one of the most sophisticated and fully developed drawing programs now on the market, and it will well serve the needs of these quality companies, especially when needing to quickly and easily create process flow charts. For staff with little or no prior experience with designing a flow chart with a computer program, SmartDraw will certainly be well received.

SmartDraw holds value for any business striving to compete in today's international markets, and will provide the computer tool staff need to create and review their internal processes critical to their profitability, product quality, and customer responsiveness. In these situations, the easier the program is to use to produce these charts and diagrams, the more likely the users will continue to repeatedly use the program.

In today's quality oriented workplace, the use of flowcharts, cause-and-effect and other standardized quality tools has become common in most larger firms competing in the global marketplace. For quality professionals looking for an easy-to-use flowchart tool, SmartDraw will provide all they need to document and produce in paper or electronic means their processes for review by quality improvement teams.

While SmartDraw may lack a few of the more technically complex of the programming abilities in other, more expensive diagramming programs, nevertheless its extensive lineup of multiple tools, features, and controls are very easy to use and easy to learn. I suspect many companies will quickly find themselves very satisfied with the nominal investment in this important program. 

Targeted Customers

With their lineup of editions of SmartDraw, SmartDraw.com is aiming at the business and manufacturing market with a focus on the non-graphics professional needing to create flowcharts, diagrams, and other drawings, while having little time to learn the program. While on the surface, SmartDraw may seem at first to be very similar to Microsoft Visio or Micrografx Flowcharter, I found SmartDraw easier to get up and running than when I first learned these other two drawing programs.

In companies running at maximum operational efficiency, redundant staff is a thing of the past, and the harried pace of today's workplace means staff have very little "down" time that can be devoted to learning how to use any software program. These companies that also need a quality software tool that will support their internal quality improvement efforts can feel comfortable investing in SmartDraw to accompany their ongoing quality commitment. 

The support for the HTML format means that SmartDraw files can now be loaded for access either via a company Intranet, or through the Internet. This adds additional value for companies needing to share these process flow charts with team members that may be located around the country or the world.

About SmartDraw.com

SmartDraw.com first released their flagship product, SmartDraw, in 1994, and has now downloaded more than 4 million copies worldwide. Based in San Diego, California, SmartDraw.com regularly releases improved versions and add-on libraries to help users of SmartDraw Draw Anything Easily.^TM 
The company now supports over 33,000 available symbols in various library collections that can either be added to their less expensive editions of the program, or that come with the Professional Plus edition. 

You can download a fully functional, 30-day trial version of SmartDraw at their web site. http://www.smartdraw.com/specials/diagram.asp?id=1116

The trial version has exactly the same features as the Standard version, but after 30 days, it no longer saves files. The trial version includes only a subset of the 33,000 symbols available at SmartDraw.com. Once a license is purchased, all watermarks in existing drawings are removed automatically.

Install and Setup

Installation and setup should proceed with little problems, but you will need to decide whether to add the many additional symbol libraries when you begin to install the program. Depending on the number of these you select, you may need anywhere from 25MB to 675MB free hard disk space. I also found on my system that I needed to be sure and have the Systray items closed, to assure the program would open as required with no TSR file conflicts. You can also install SmartDraw on a network, but you must have a network license to share one copy of SmartDraw between multiple users on the network.

Price

$198.00 SmartDraw 5 Professional Plus
$  99.00 SmartDraw 5 Professional
$  49.00 SmartDraw 5 Standard
$  49.00 each add-on set of symbols

The Standard version includes standard features and standard symbols.

The Professional version includes standard features, standard symbols, a spell checker, advanced import/export, find and replace text, OLE client support, MS Office companion, and one add-on collection of symbols, the Business & Charting group.

The Professional Plus version includes all the above, plus eight (8) additional add-on collections of symbols.

NOTE: If buying the Standard or Professional version, the additional add-on symbol libraries can later be added.

Add-On Symbol Libraries

The following symbols & templates can each be separately purchased and then added to the Standard and Professional editions of SmartDraw.

Business & Charting
Clip Art
Electrical Engineering
Floor plans
Maps & Geography
Mechanical Engineering
Network Design
Science & Math
Software Design

In addition, you can add free SmartDraw holiday clip art, and a free collection of calendars and day planners for 2000 and 2001 that can be customized to fit your needs.

NetZoom Symbol Library

SmartDraw also has developed arrangements with outside vendors that are making available still other collections of symbols to be added to the SmartDraw program. The NetZoom Symbols add-on for SmartDraw contains over 25,000 additional network equipment symbols, just what an information systems manager will need.

The NetZoom Symbols cost $99.00, and this program is separately reviewed here.

Stacking Up to Visio

With the basic operations so similar to Microsoft Visio, mainly the similar approach to being able to drag and drop a symbol onto a drawing area, users may wonder how these two programs differ. I've used Visio for many years, and think that the SmartDraw interface tends to be less "busy," and less threatening to brand new users. Also, SmartDraw's user interface will likely seem more intuitive to new users, and easier to get started creating their diagram.

Visio supports OLE automation and supports users who want to program their drawing or their shapes, while SmartDraw does not. However, I think new users of SmartDraw will probably find it easier than Visio to learn, although both do offer many similarly powerful features that are so well designed in SmartDraw.

In SmartDraw, you can create very complex diagrams, as you can in Visio, such as complex circuitry diagrams, floor plans, and even mechanical engineering schematics, all using the built-in symbols that either come with the program or that can be later added. I found creating these in SmartDraw to be a bit easier, than in Visio, and also found creating business forms to be less tedious in SmartDraw.

Overall, I think SmartDraw has excellent potential for use in most businesses, while Visio tends to be more relevant in companies needing to challenge the more complex features and programming controls found in Visio. I also suggest that anyone considering SmartDraw should work with the Professional Plus edition, as this will provide you with all the many thousands of shapes, lines, and symbols that you will find yourself needing to use.

For Information Systems managers and technicians, the Professional Plus edition is a sure bet, as this is how you will get the included symbols that represent the many different types of computer equipment devices that are customized according to the various vendors that sell the item. These additional shapes can also be further enhanced by adding on the NetZoom library of IS networking shapes, also a definite must for any IS department.

Ultimately, the price points of these two programs must be also taken into consideration, and this is where SmartDraw definitely has the edge. Visio 2000 Technical edition sells for $399, while the Visio 2000 Enterprise edition sells for $999. SmartDraw 5 Professional Plus retails for $198, and you will have to dig deep in Visio to find enough technical or user interface differences to justify this significant price difference.

Wisely, SmartDraw.com has also chosen to code their latest program to enable it to import Visio (.VSD) files into SmartDraw files. This will make it easy to share drawings with Visio users, or to upgrade your old Visio drawings to SmartDraw. Best of all, you can download and start using SmartDraw for a free, 30-day trial period.

I suggest any company that has yet to standardize on a drawing program strongly consider SmartDraw as their charting and diagramming program of choice. Technical or engineering firms will find SmartDraw a valuable addition to the lineup of drawing and design tools they may likely already have integrated into their operations.

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

Pentium or better PC
Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000 or later
25MB to 675MB free hard disk space, depending on # added symbols
32MB RAM suggested

As any user of any diagramming or drawing program knows, the faster the processor and the more RAM the better these and any other program will run. With these diagramming programs, you really do need to strive to run these on the fastest processor you can manage in your company. The coding and the processing required to make these user interfaces so easy to use results in a significant demand on system resources.

Contact

Sandra Lai
Marketing Coordinator
SmartDraw.com
10085 Carroll Canyon Road, Suite 220
San Diego, California 92131
858-549-0314, Ext. 111
800-501-0314
FAX 858-549-2830
sandyl@smartdraw.com
http://www.smartdraw.com