Keeping it neat and tidy: Formatting options

MindManager gives you everything you need to generate a Mind Map with the same clarity you’d achieve with a pen and paper. This means that you can control the following aspects:

Branch shape, thickness and colour: The program provides you with a choice of different layouts.

Script colour, size and type.

Borders: Colours and other options: here too you can choose from among a number of different layouts. If you place a border around a branch, the highlighted branch and all its sub-branches are enclosed. MindManager’s border function also allows you to insert curly brackets after a branch and to add other branches after the brackets.

Icons: Via the Library tab in the Task Pane MindManager provides access to a large number of icons. You can attach as many as you like to a branch. You can filter icons but not images.

Images: Also via Library MindManager provides a number of pre-categorised pictures; you can attach one of these to each branch. Unlike icons, images can be adjusted for size but not filtered. In addition to pre-categorised images you can also embed graphics files, such as company logos, in a Mind Map.

You can modify all these options via the start symbols bar in the Script Type and Format areas (Figure 10-2).

The main difference when Mind Mapping with a pen and paper is that with MindManager there’s no way of drawing branches freehand. MindManager automatically organises and positions them for you, as shown in Figure 10-3.