SmartDraw Software Announces Solution to Manage and Improve Presentations

SAN DIEGO, March 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, SmartDraw Software announced a new solution for businesses that want to significantly increase the effectiveness of presentations throughout their organization. SmartDraw's Visual Presentation solution uses visuals to both create and manage more engaging presentations.

SmartDraw Visual Presentation users are able to significantly more quickly plan, manage and create visually-rich presentations without ever having to open PowerPoint. The result is better presentations in less time.

"Millions of presentations are created every day in businesses around the world," said Paul Stannard, CEO of SmartDraw Software. "When everyone in an organization uses visuals to plan, compose and manage their presentations, and then present them in a manner that improves audience engagement and information retention by up to six times, productivity and communication gains are instantly achieved. Only SmartDraw makes this possible."

SmartDraw not only makes it possible to replace boring text bullets with powerful visuals of all kinds, but it completely reinvents the way companies use PowerPoint®, and provides immediate and significant benefits by helping them:

• Deliver more powerful, visually-rich presentations
• Keep an audience engaged with visuals that are animated automatically
• Create presentations faster with SmartDraw's PowerPoint® Builder

Research shows that text-based presentations relying heavily upon written bullet points are generally perceived as lacking engagement and are ineffective in communicating complex ideas or large amounts of information.  

"Showing a visual, like a data chart, to your audience all at once can be overwhelming," said Rick Altman, speaker and organizer of The Presentation Summit 2010, and author of the book, Why Most PowerPoint® Presentations Suck and How to Make them Better. "They will be too busy trying to absorb all the information to focus on the specific point you are trying to make. A much more effective way is to reveal the visual step-by-step with sequencing. SmartDraw does this for you automatically."

SmartDraw also makes presentations easier to manage because, no matter how many visuals are added, the entire presentation is always contained in a single SmartDraw file. This eliminates the problem of trying to find the original source files for charts, for example, when last minute changes need to be made.

By enabling everyone in the organization to create visual presentations quickly and easily, SmartDraw VP allows an enterprise to cut through today's information overload and communicate more effectively by distilling complex information into an easy-to-digest visual form.

SmartDraw automates the creation of 70 different types of business visuals including flowcharts, data charts and graphs, mind maps, project charts, timelines, floor plans, and more. Built-in integration with Microsoft Office® and Adobe PDF allows users to create and then share SmartDraw visuals with a single click.

For an overview video, please visit: http://www.smartdraw.com/videos/presentation/

For a white paper describing in detail how SmartDraw reinvents PowerPoint, visit: http://www.smartdraw.com/enterprise/visual-productivity/presentations/

About SmartDraw Software

SmartDraw Software, LLC helps businesses increase their bottom line by improving communication, refining operations, completing projects on time, and successfully implementing their plans through the everyday use of visual communication. Publisher of SmartDraw VP, the world's first visual processor^™, SmartDraw Software enables business professionals to easily and automatically create more than 70 types of common business visuals, including flowcharts, project charts, mind maps, org charts, timelines and more. SmartDraw lets anyone achieve professional-quality results in just minutes. SmartDraw is used by more than half of the Fortune 500, as well as thousands of law firms, police departments, health systems and private enterprises of all sizes. SmartDraw Software, LLC is privately-held, with headquarters in San Diego, California. For more information or to download a free trial of SmartDraw, please visit www.SmartDraw.com.

SOURCE SmartDraw Software, LLC