![]() ![]() In many instances you’ll take a mind map and then produce some other plan or formal document from it … but in those instances where the mind map becomes the output, adding clip-art/images really helps things along: Adding clip art and images to your mind maps You also have options to insert clip-art and images to help you increase the options for presenting the mind map. ![]() (I’ve personally found it to be very useful.) If your map gets large, you can choose a compact view which reduces spacing between elements (while still keeping it quite readable) if you like to see a stronger sense of hierarchy you can also choose an option to justify topic alignment, which results in a view such as the following: Using the “Justified Topic Aligment” option. You can apply a number of different ‘stamps’ to entries to help you organise yourself or plan prioritisation.īy default it will auto-balance your mind maps (as applicable to the style) so that the left/right sides are relatively similar in size as you add or fill out details - though if you find this distracting you can turn it off. You’ll have noted a red dot on the “Duke’s Coffee Beans Subscription” item, too. For instance, you can create relationships between items - which is quite handy when topics overlap: Mind Map with relationships shown XMind has a bunch of useful drawing tools available. Style: Mind Map (with the default template applied) Style: Logic Chart (with an informal template applied) Style: Fishbone (with a relatively formal template applied) Style: Tree Table (default template applied) Below I’ve exported a basic mind map covering the start of some freeform planning around my husband and I moving next year, using a mix of the different styles. Not all styles suit each type of mind-map you want to do - an Org Chart is going to suit an organisational hierarchy considerably better than it would suit a free-form exploration of a novel you’re thinking about, for instance. XMind supports a variety of mind-map style formats, including:Įach one of those styles includes at least a couple of pre-made templates, and you can add more/create your own as well. That’s a good way of letting you test it out without feeling like you’re not getting the full picture of what the strengths of the product are. It has a try-before-buying mode that gives access to most functions, though exports have watermarks attached. XMind can be installed on Windows, macOS, iOS/iPad OS and Android, in addition to a cloud offering. So I threw the question to my Twitter followers and XMind was the answer that came back the most. Many of them seem to be SEO optimised links to products like Miro, Lucid Chart, etc., but I wanted something more guaranteeably installable - and cheaper. (Oh my it makes my skin crawl when I open up Word and it defaults to Calibri.)Ī casual search for “mind mapping software” on Google brings forth a bewildering array of options. My husband is a designer so after all these years I appreicate options for making my work look good, even if I’m not so great myself at the base design. I use WIndows for work, but a mix of macOS, Windows and iPad OS for productivity away from work. That way I could get benefit from it personally in addition to work. Support multiple installs under the same license or subscription.Support either a one-off payment or annual, rather than monthly subscription.Support PDF and graphics exports - so I could share my working without requiring others to have the software installed.I’m always happy to pay for good software, I just don’t like paying through the nose. Support ‘infinite’ scale canvases - or rather, be not bound by “create new A3 mind map” style limits.I didn’t care if it also supported a cloud-based option, but I wanted to keep everything local. The requirements I set out with were pretty loose: My new role has a lot more planning in it, and so after the first few weeks of endless bullet-point notes with crazy levels of indentation I decided it was time to look again at mind mapping - but this time, seeing if there was any software I could use to tackle it. I’d see examples of people using them for a variety of reasons - study, work, planning, etc., and then make a half-hearted stab at doing one but start to get bogged down in hesitency when drawing them on paper. I’ve always been one of those people who has been a bit leery of mind maps. ![]()
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