Anyone found a simple way to draw business diagrams?

[Hugo]

Apart from using a pen tablet and OneNote, I mean.
I've got one of those mouse pads that you stroke (on my laptop), which makes
dragging from top left corner to bottom right a bit of a pain.
Click to insert a rectangular text box at the cursor would suit me fine.
Business diagrams tend to be very simple with lots of white space (because
they are supposed to convey a concept, not fill in lots of detail). Visio is
big overkill, Word Draw is baby Visio.
Any thoughts or 3rd party apps appreciated

 

[Herb Tyson [MVP]]

When inserting a shape in Word, you don't actually have to drag to get the
shape. After you click the desired shape in the drawing toolbar (or ribbon,
if Word 2007), when crosshairs pointer appears, just double-click rather
than drag, and Word will insert a default size of the shape selected. You
might have to drag to make it the right size after that, but double-clicking
will insert a basic shape to get your started.

 

[Hugo]

Fantastic it works! Now what about those connectors that were in Word 2003
but removed from 2007? I can think of plenty of other things that Visio
could do to make it the programme of choice (eg select a group of shapes and
set them as "auto-distribute vertically" so that whenever you move a shape or
add/remove a shape the remainder distribute themselves to take account of the
shift - brilliant for network diagrams and cause-effect diagrams where the
arrows cross each other) but by taking connectors out of MS Draw you've just
upset a whole lot of users (unless I'm missing something important here?!

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Hugo,

I'm not clear on what the 'removed connectors' are in this case.
Out of the box, in Word 2007 all of the line group in Insert=>Shape are active connectors that previously only worked within a
Drawing Canvas/MS Draw in prior versions of Word.

MS Drawing canvas as an add-in was replaced with the MS Drawing Canvas in later versions. It's available under
Insert=>Shape=>New Drawing.

(Note that MS Draw was created by Microsoft before they purchased the Visio company and product and unfortunately a hoped for
integration of many Visio features, filters and capabilities into other Office products hasn't yet happened). <g>

=============

Fantastic it works! Now what about those connectors that were in Word 2003 but removed from 2007? I can think of plenty of other
things that Visio
could do to make it the programme of choice (eg select a group of shapes and set them as "auto-distribute vertically" so that
whenever you move a shape or add/remove a shape the remainder distribute themselves to take account of the shift - brilliant for
network diagrams and cause-effect diagrams where the arrows cross each other) but by taking connectors out of MS Draw you've just
upset a whole lot of users (unless I'm missing something important here?! >>
--

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*