WHEN IT COMES to drawing software most people swear by Adobe's Illustrator. Con¬ceptDraw 7 Professional is an illustration software in the same vein with a large num¬ber of features and an exhaus¬tive set of readymade shapes to help you come up with the exact drawing you need.

One of the first things that come to mind when you talk about illustrating in a busi¬ness environment is creating flowcharts. ConceptDraw makes this especially easy with the help of a template and a large set of tools. You can enable Smart Connector which means that any box that you create will be in~ui¬tively granted connectors and arms keeping in mind the chart that you are creat¬ing. You can even move the boxes around without wor¬rying about the connectors. You can further customize your flowchart by changing colors, effects and fonts.
The software also puts a lot of focus on Web publish¬ing with a powerful HTML export feature which helps you make Web-pages based on readymade templates. It also boasts of a Scalable Vec¬tor Graphics export feature which means that your illus¬trations can be viewed and scaled in any Web browser.

ConceptDraw 7 has bpen designed for usability and apart from Web-pages and flowcharts, can also be used to create organization diagrams and technical drawings- any¬thing from building plans to electrical diagrams. You can do this with the help of the more than 5,000 shapes that exist within the tool's library. You can access these shapes through a very simple drag¬and-drop menu which replac¬es the regular select -and-draw feature that are present in other illustration software. You can also create custom properties for shapes and then use those shapes as a visible database where your data gets stored for your reports. These shapes can be further supple¬mented with menus, links to other items and files.

The software is also easy to use in terms of compatibility since it can save files as CAD, graphics formats, pre¬sentations and web-pages. It also allows the files created to be used under both a Mac OS and Windows.

You can find the full ver¬sion of this software on this month's DVD. You need to register the product first at www.conceptdraw.com/reg¬istration/cd 7 special. php?india and follow the instructions from the e-mail you receive.