SmartDraw Pro 1.03 brings simple elegance and several new features to the diagramming flowcharting market. In many ways, the program's drag-and-drop interface is reminiscent of Visio Corp.'s Visio and Micrografx's Snap Graphics, but SmartDraw Pro, at $69, is much less expensive and is aimed at occasional diagrammers.

SmartDraw's strength lies in its ease of use: Non-artists can produce everything from a simple organizational diagram to a complex process flowchart. You add shapes and lines from a ribbon toolbar or any of the program's 28 floating palettes. To use an object, you drag and drop it into place or click on it and then click on where you want it to go.

Connected objects stay connected even when the objects are moved, and three other features ( Snap-to, Align, and Make Same Size) help maintain relationships between objects in a complicated diagram. The program's in-place text editing capabilities, combined with objects that automatically resize themselves to fit the space, make creating or editing a SmartDraw diagram a delight.

SmartDraw's relatively small number of line and shape objects is expected to be remedied in Version 2.0, slated for release later this year. At present, the number of included objects is adequate, but reflects SmartDraw's status as a first-release product.

SmartDraw Pro gets you up to speed fast - and at a fraction of the cost of its competitors.