How To Free Draw In Smartdraw

Creating diagrams, such equally organizational charts and network infrastructure maps, used to require either a designer or a whole lot of patience. Not anymore. Diagramming app SmartDraw intuits the shapes and objects you're going to put into a diagram based on the template you choose. Information technology gives you buttons that quickly add together the new elements, align them, and make them look professional person. The programme is dead unproblematic to employ, and it'southward bachelor as a Windows app and every bit a Web app, called SmartDraw Cloud (which is what I tested). SmartDraw is a top flowchart and diagramming app, but it'due south likewise one of the most expensive. Aside from cost, its other downside is that it has just lightweight sharing and collaboration capabilities. For its ease of use and huge library of templates and objects, SmartDraw is an Editors' Option, but it shares this honor with Lucidchart, which costs (and offers) less and supports existent-time collaboration.

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Pricing and Plans

There are a few ways to purchase this splendid productivity app. Ane it to buy it equally the downloadable software SmartDraw for Windows, and the other is to subscribe to the SmartDraw Cloud service. The downloadable product comes in three dissimilar versions: Standard, Business, and Enterprise. SmartDraw Cloud, which is what I used to test the service, does non take diverse tiers.

If you choose the Windows app, information technology costs a flat fee of $297 for Standard, $397 for Concern, and $2,995 (starting cost) for Enterprise. The Standard and Business apps are on the expensive side, given some of the other diagramming tools on the market, but are well-nigh the same cost as the Visio Windows app ($299.99). The Enterprise package includes premium support, content updates, avant-garde administration capabilities, and admission to SmartDraw Cloud if desired.

SmartDraw Cloud interface

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The Standard account has fewer templates and objects than the other versions, but it covers a lot of ground. It includes templates for emergency and disaster, engineering science and CAD, floor plans, healthcare, infographics, mural plans, legal, retail, science and education, and software and Web design among others. The Business account includes everything that comes in the Standard package, plus access to more business-themed templates and objects. These assets comprehend the following themes: cause and consequence, decision copse, flowcharts, maps, mind maps, marketing charts, network blueprint, and org charts.

When you buy SmartDraw for Windows, information technology includes access to SmartDraw Cloud and premium support for your first twelvemonth. For ongoing maintenance after that, yous'll need to pay an add-on $49.95 per yr. But the installed software is yours to ain and use with no additional fees. If you cull to buy only the Deject app, the price is $179.40 annually. You get everything that's included in the SmartDraw Concern account. The Cloud app has a few unique features that aren't available in the Windows app, such as support for Google fonts.

SmartDraw's prices are on the loftier terminate compared to the cost of other diagramming software—except Visio. Online diagramming tool Creately, for example, charges a lot less for a single user online account, at but $49 per year. Gliffy too charges less, with a price tag of $47.40 per year for a single-user Standard account, and $59.88 annually per user for a Business Team account.

Lucidchart costs just $5.95 per calendar month or $59.40 annually for a single user account that includes 100MB of storage. Lucidchart Pro costs $9.95 per month or $107.40 annually. Both of those prices are less than SmartDraw Cloud'south. Lucidchart competes better with SmartDraw than Gliffy, only SmartDraw has more than templates and tools that make diagramming dead simple for non-designers.

Some other locally installed piece of software, Omnigraffle ($99.95), is fifty-fifty cheaper than SmartDraw. Omnigraffle is only available for Mac, while SmartDraw's locally installed version is only available for Windows. If you need a totally free solution, Describe.io is the app to endeavor.

Getting Started

To create a SmartDraw account, you demand to provide an e-mail address and fix a username and countersign, or authenticate with a Google account. Every bit mentioned, I used SmartDraw Deject to examination the service, and the rest of this review reflects that.

One of the first things y'all notice in SmartDraw is the plenitude of templates. The left side of the interface holds a list of template categories, which itself is impressively long. They include Decision Trees, Emergency Planning, Floor Plans (both commercial and residential), Flowcharts, Infographics, Maps & Geography, Marketing Charts, Org Charts, Web Blueprint, and many others. In that location are even specialized templates for organizations in healthcare, legal services, and science and educational activity.

Many of the categories also have subcategories. By the time y'all reach the folio with actual templates, you will have drilled down to a very specific apply case, which SmartDraw takes advantage of. The closer the template is to your intended use, the meliorate SmartDraw can intuit what yous will do with the template. For example, inside the Networking Design department is a subsection of templates chosen Cisco Diagrams, and the objects and symbols in that template include an IBM mainframe, access betoken, modems, and then along.

The sheer number of templates in SmartDraw gives it an edge over most other diagramming apps. While Lucidchart, for example, has a plentiful selection, SmartDraw's is even bigger and more than diverse. Comparing the two libraries, SmartDraw covers a lot of ground that Lucidchart misses entirely. In SmartDraw, you cqn observe templates for world maps, criminal offence scenes, emergency evacuations, and even beefcake. Lucidchart isn't nearly then expansive.

Opening a template puts y'all into the SmartDraw workspace. Here y'all find ii tabs on the left that let yous toggle between SmartPanel and Symbols. The SmartPanel is one of SmartDraw's signature features. Based on the template, information technology provides quick action buttons that add not only the shapes the services has adamant you volition probable need to build your diagram, simply suggestions for positioning and elements showing relationships (such as arrows and lines connecting one shape to another).

For example, in an organizational nautical chart template, let'southward say I kickoff by updating 1 of the objects already on the folio to signal someone in my arrangement. Now I want to add together her subordinates, peers, and bosses. The SmartPanel has options to add a new rectangle containing sample text for name and title and plus an arrow that will go up, left, right, or downwards from my selected person. It as well contains options so I tin use a standard rectangle with only the name and championship, or an object that as well leaves space for a photo. A few other options in the SmartPanel are Add Co-Manager, Add together Assistant, and Describe Dotted Line.

SmartDraw Cloud SmartPanel

SmartDraw intuits other qualities that it's pretty certain yous want to see in your last diagram, also, such as alignment and fifty-fifty spacing. Information technology makes certain that text stays inside a shape, rather than leaving you accommodate sizes. And it has a handy Quick Action push to brand all selected objects the aforementioned size.

The usual diagramming tools for aligning, grouping, rotating, and flipping objects are all provided every bit well. When I was creating diagrams, I had moments when some of the tools acted finicky, however. Putting a table onto a chart was no problem, just selecting it to delete it was, oddly, frustratingly difficult. Aligning objects worked perfectly when they were basic shapes, merely when I went digging through library of symbols to find more unusual imagery, such every bit a beaver, the alignment was technically correct but visually incorrect. The truthful eye of the beaver takes into account its long tail, but the visual center is the center of its body. SmartDraw makes it easy to adjust the alignment every bit necessary, only I give the example to indicate out that sometimes what the software intuits isn't necessarily exactly what you desire. It does, however, become you almost of the mode there, even if information technology's not exactly as you imagined. Making a few tiny tweaks in SmartDraw is a cakewalk compared to the old-school manner of building diagrams in vector software.

Supported File Types

A major concern for anyone in the market for a diagramming app is whether it supports a multifariousness of file types. With SmartDraw, you lot tin consign to PDF, PNG, SVG, or "for Function." That last selection creates a flattened paradigm file of the diagram that automatically copies to your pasteboard. The idea is that you open up your Function certificate, whether information technology's a PowerPoint presentation or a Give-and-take Doc, and paste the epitome into information technology.

Lucidchart doesn't accept that copy-and-paste feature, simply it does add a few more consign options non found in SmartDraw, namely Visio VDX, which requires Lucidchart Pro, PNG with transparent groundwork, and SVG with transparent background.

While SmartDraw can't consign Visio files, it can import them. It worked fine when I tested it, preserving the diagram and all its attributes with no trouble. But SmartDraw can only import Visio and SmartDraw (SDR) documents. Lucidchart is much more capable at importing files. It supports files that come from AWS Architecture, Gliffy, Omnigraffle, and Visio.

Collaboration and Integration

SmartDraw offers some collaboration support, but it's adequately limited. If you want to share your diagram so that other people can edit it, too, yous'll have to encounter a few requirements.

Outset, you lot need to save the diagram to SmartDraw Cloud'south own service. There is some power to share documents from other continued storage spaces, such every bit OneDrive, simply information technology's clunky because you need to so go to that other storage provider to share the file.

2nd, if you give your collaborators editing permission rather than read-only admission, only ane person tin be logged into the document and editing information technology at a fourth dimension. Let's say I share my document with Kyle. He wants to edit information technology. He opens the link and logs into SmartDraw. If anyone else is already in the procedure of editing it, Kyle will come across a notification on screen that the document is locked and he tin can simply open a read-simply version at this fourth dimension. So, there is no synchronous, collaborative editing in SmartDraw. There is in Lucidchart, however.

Lucidchart has the best collaboration support I've seen in a diagramming app. It works much the aforementioned mode as information technology does in Google Docs and other M Suite apps, such as Sheets and Slides. When more than 1 person has a file open, anybody tin run across who is in the certificate and what changes they make as they work. Collaborators have a conversation box to discuss issues alive, also as commenting tools for asynchronous communication.

Many other diagramming apps also support collaboration, including Lucidchart, Visio, and Creately. The power to collaborate in real time is quickly becoming a standard feature in diagramming apps, especially cloud-based ones. SmartDraw is behind the curve in this respect.

I mentioned that y'all tin save files to OneDrive. You can set this integration upward directly in SmartDraw. You tin can as well connect Google Drive and Dropbox to hands salvage files to or import them from those storage solutions.

Dead Simple Diagramming

SmartDraw is a PCMag Editors' Choice considering it's the virtually thorough yet simple diagramming app there is. Keep in mind that despite its excellence, it'south expensive and information technology doesn't support existent-time collaboration. Information technology shares the Editors' Choice with Lucidchart, which costs less, and has correspondingly fewer templates and features, but offers excellent collaboration features.

SmartDraw Cloud

Cons

The Bottom Line

SmartDraw makes it easier than any other app to quickly create professional person-quality diagrams, thanks to its huge, context-sensitive collection of elements and templates. Its collaboration features aren't the strongest, nonetheless.

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