Smart Art: handy desk accessory. (Software Review) (evaluation)

Smart Art: Handy Desk Accessory Emerald City offers four different packages, all of which are desk accessories. The Smart Art series consists of three packages of capabilities that can be purchased separately or together. It includes Smart Art I, the original version that produces 15 different text effects; Smart Art II, which produces 15 graphic effects; and Smart Art III, which adds 15 more text effects and some greater sophistication in modifying text.

The newest product from Emerald City, called TypeAlign, runs with Adobe Type Manager (ATM) fonts and provides quite a different capability from Smart Art. TypeAlign is used to create and modify text on straight, curved or freehandrawn baselines. Because TypeAlign is sold separately and provides quite different functionality from Smart Art, we'll discuss them separately here.

The Smart Art series is less ambitious than TypeStyler or LetraStudio, a fact that has advantages as well as disadvantages. It is extremely easy to use; everything is intuitive and requires no training to master. The negative side is that keeping it simple has placed some restrictions on functionality, which will become clear as we proceed with this review.

Some of the ways Smart Art differs from TypeStyler and LetraStudio are:

* It is a desk accessory that can be accessed at any time, while other applications are running. It also enables pasting EPS files in programs that don't usually accept EPS format.

* It serves as a nice "PostScript preview" of other files on disk, in addition to Smart Art files. This is done through the Smart Art directory, which provides a small window to view graphically the file that is highlighted.

* It uses the PostScript processor in the printer to generate …