Free Your Mind with XMind

Heed-mapping is a popular tool for brainstorming ideas, outlining projects, and organizing information. While some people feel nigh comfortable mind-mapping with pencils or pens and paper, others bask the ease and accessibility of software-based mind-mapping, and there are a variety of tools designed to help make, share, and store heed-maps on your estimator. Some, like MindManager and iMindMap are powerful, enterprise-level programs, with price tags to match; gratuitous programs like FreeMind don't take the same features, merely for daily utilize by individuals, they are quite powerful and capable tools. There are even a range on online heed-mapping tools similar bubbl.us and Mind42.

My new favorite listen-mapping tool is XMind, a gratuitous, open up-source mind-mapping program with a useful (though express) online component. XMind is incredibly easy to utilise, allowing you to brand and share good-looking mind-maps (and flowcharts, outlines, org charts, and other visual representations of textual data) with a minimum of fuss.

Features

XMind is a free download for Windows, Mac, or Linux computers. Information technology is quite intuitive to employ — for standard mind-maps, simply select a node, hit "Enter" to create a sibling node (i at the same "level") or "Tab" to create a "child" node (one under whatever level you lot're currently at). When you create a new node, just outset typing to create a label, hitting "Enter" when you're done, and hitting "Enter" or "Tab" to continue with a new node. If y'all want to edit or change the label on any node, just double-click information technology.

A sidebar panel contains a hierarchical representation of your mind-map, for quick navigation, and below that formatting options to change both the appearance (font, colors, etc.) and the structure of your listen-map — you can switch "on-the-fly" from a standard bubble-map to an org-chart, fishbone chart, outline, or several other pre-configured layouts.

XMind is drag-and-driblet enabled, also, then you tin can move nodes around in relation to each other. A set of limited drawing tools allows you to create secondary connections between items, or group them together.

Nodes take more than but labels. You can attach external files, embed images, insert hyperlinks, and attach notes, all from the correct-click bill of fare or the standard card bars.

Exporting and Sharing

Once your mind=map is done, you can consign it in a number of formats: images (bmp, jpeg, gif, and png are all supported), HTML, or text are available, equally well equally XMind'south own formats.

XMind likewise includes an online web-based component where you can post your heed-maps for public viewing and sharing. Users tin can download any of the listen-maps in the public repository and import them into their ain install of XMind. You tin can besides embed mind-maps into your website.

Unfortunately, private sharing is unavailable in the free version; if you desire to employ XMind to interact on sensitive topics, you will demand to utilize the Pro version.

Pro features

Other features defective from XMind's gratis version but available with a paid upgrade include new views — such equally GANTT charts and a GTD todo item feature; a presentation view allowing users to evidence mind-maps in total-screen; the ability to record audio notes (useful for recording a lecture while heed-mapping your notes — notes are fourth dimension-tied to the recording itself); and more export formats including PDF, Word, PowerPoint, and MindManager.

The Pro version is not particularly affordable, unfortunately. In fact, the developers have chosen to license XMind Pro with a subscription model, which is quite unfortunate. To upgrade, expect to shell out $6.00 a calendar month, or $49 a year. I realize that users are getting ongoing access to the web features, just I would much rather encounter a one-time fee for what is primarily a traditional, desktop-based piece of software.

I'm as well surprised to see that, with so many online mind-mapping apps out at that place, XMind has non make information technology possible to create, edit, and clone listen-maps using the online interface. The upload, share, download, and edit model now is hardly an constructive style to collaborate — information technology would be easier just to email the files dorsum and forth, and just equally unsatisfactory. Hopefully XMind will continue to develop the online component to add true alive collaboration in the well-nigh futurity.

Decision

Despite some small-scale faults (which are really external to the plan itself), XMind is a fine mind-mapping program. For individual users who don't need to work collaboratively, XMind has all the features you lot should demand, with a very low learning bend. It'southward effective and even fun to use — and that's central, because heed-mapping is all about transforming piece of work into creative play in order to unleash your inner creativity. Longtime readers of this site know I have a somewhat conflicted human relationship with listen-mapping, but with XMind, I was able to beginning producing actually useful listen-maps in a matter of minutes.

I highly recommend yous endeavour it out for yourself: XMind.

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Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/featured/free-your-mind-with-xmind.html

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