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ABC Flowcharter
Review by John Martin, Madison PC User's Group
ABC Flowcharter is a reasonably easy and intuitively designed program.
The ability to link charts makes the creation of child diagrams a
breeze. There is support and a Hint bar to speed us along to the
creation of powerful and eye-catching charts. Whether you are
creating org, structure, or flow charts, this program does decrease
the stress level because you are not fighting the program to determine
how, or even if the program has the abilities to accomplish what you
want it to.
This program does not suffer from the problem of diminishing returns,
since it takes less than 500K disk space. Requirements to run ABC
Flowcharter are: Windows 3.1, VGA, mouse, and a hard drive with 500K
free disk space.
Documents
The charts that you create are stored as "documents" on your disk.
Each document does have a size limit. Minimum size is one chart.
Maximum size is 32,000 related charts in a single document. I,
unfortunately, do not have the inclination to link 32,000 charts to
see how much disk space it takes up.
You can manipulate the hierarchy of the charts by adding to the top,
bottom, and middle. This manipulation is very versatile when you are
almost done with an organizational chart and the powers that must be
obeyed (the people that sign your paycheck) inform you that they are
restructuring the organization to allow for the majority stockholder's
cousin-in-law's new position of chief paper airplane tester.
Shapes
ABC comes with 30 standard charting symbols. You can also import any
graphic you like as long as it is in Metafile format (Windows
Clipboard format). ABC can automatically size the graphic or you can
control it manually. You can add text to the shapes by clicking on
them and typing. The shapes can also be filled with one of the 32
fill patterns. There are also a number of colors, widths, and border
styles to choose from.
Lines
Lines are used to connect shapes, other lines, or can be drawn to an
empty area. Lines can be routed four different ways: manually, down
and out, out and down, down and down (org chart). After a line has
been drawn, you can add any of its attachments to the shapes or you
can manually route the lines to save space or to make the chart look
better. There are 16 different terminators and a number of colors,
widths, and line styles selections.
Text
Text can be placed in shapes, on lines, or in floating text blocks.
The shapes can automatically be sized to fit the text rather easily
by selecting the Fit Shape option in the Text menu. You can also
change the font size by using the Change Font option. Justification
is also easy by selecting the shape or text box and using the
Alignment option in the Text menu. The Alignment option allows you
to select any one of the nine ways of centering and justifying text.
Viewing charts
ABC Flowcharter can zoom in or out to show the actual size, current
page, or pages used. These three options may seem to be a limitation,
but in the time that I used this program I found no need for any other
view than those that are supplied.
Miscellaneous
In the 134-page wire-bound manual there is a section called Command
Summary. The Command Summary is a listing of all the commands
available, sorted by commands within each menu item. This was a
little weird at first, but after I had become accustomed to the
layout, it became intuitive to use. There is also a listing of the
error messages and an English explanation of what could be causing
the problem. I wish more manuals had this type of listing. Help
does not incorporate hypertext or any of the other neat stuff that
Windows users have become accustomed to. I hope this will be
addressed in the next upgrade.
Summary
ABC Flowcharter is a good program. The drawbacks I found are rather
minor, since there are ways to work around them. My complaints in
this review should not be considered a reason not to purchase this
program, but more of a hint for the next upgrade. I have worked with
a few other charting programs, and this one seems to be the most
intuitive. ABC works the way I want to work. I don't have to adjust
my vision for my chart to fit the limitations of a program. This
program does almost everything I would want it to. The most important
and impressive thing about this program is the technical support.
It is available 24 hours a day.
ABC Flowcharter has a list price of $249 (street price about $200)
and is from:
Micrografx
1303 Arapaho
Richardson, TX 75081
(800)-733-3729