Inspiration 8

Having spent the better part of my career in education my first mind mapping tool that I came in contact with was Inspiration. To this day it still remains one of my favorite applications when I am planning or need to organize my ideas. I can recall when I first came across Inspiration how wowed I was to be able to create a mind maps which such ease. Even today being able to use the RapidFire and Auto Arrange feature makes creating a mind map a very easy task. Despite all of the changes and versions, Inspiration remains a relatively easy program to use. While it has it strong roots in education it is certainly a very viable alternative for mind mapping for the business community. While I tend to spend most of the time in the Diagram View (mind mapping) it is nice to know that with a click of the button, I can see my map in the Outline View. I tend to use the Outline View when I want to rearrange my ideas-by simply dragging the idea up or down the Outline View.



Inspiration 8, is a full featured graphic organizer and mind mapping tool which I know will help you think through situations and processes with more clarity. Inspiration 8 adds the ability to search and add graphics from the Inspiration server which is a great way to access clip art and photographic images. If you are working in a school you will be happy to know that all of the clip art and images have been checked and screened for appropriateness. Inspiration makes it very easy to link notes, files, movies, audio, and hyperlinks to an idea to spruce up your mind map. There are lots of ways within Inspiration 8 to format your mind maps to get them to look just the way you want them. If you need to share your mind map it is very easy to do and Inspiration 8 gives you a couple of different way to do it. You can transfer your outline to Microsft Word or Appleworks, with a click of the transfer button. Or if you want to create a PowerPoint slide presentation from your mind map you can also do that to. It is also easy to output your map to a HTML file and put it up on the web. Or if you simply want to share your mind map you can export it as a .gif or .jpeg. file. You will find Inspiration 8 an easy program to master and just in case you need some assistance Inspiration now includes instructional movies to help jump-start you.

Posted in: brian friedlander,concept map,inspiration,mind mapping