Visio or SmartDraw

[anthony]

I've bought both Visio 2010 Pro and SmartDraw VP. I want to use one of
these programs to help me redesign my Access database ie to help me
gather my thoughts and turn a rambling 15 year old database into a
better designed one. Visio has done a great job of documenting the
existing database; I used the Reverse Engineer wizard for that. But
I'm not at all familiar with the program, and for the simple purposes
of laying out the table relationships, hiding dependencies when
necessary (a bit like Word outlines), I'm wondering whether SmartDraw
might be less grief. I'd be very grateful for advice

Many thanks

 

[Paul Herber]

I've bought both Visio 2010 Pro and SmartDraw VP. I want to use one of
these programs to help me redesign my Access database ie to help me
gather my thoughts and turn a rambling 15 year old database into a
better designed one. Visio has done a great job of documenting the
existing database; I used the Reverse Engineer wizard for that. But
I'm not at all familiar with the program, and for the simple purposes
of laying out the table relationships, hiding dependencies when
necessary (a bit like Word outlines), I'm wondering whether SmartDraw
might be less grief. I'd be very grateful for advice

Is SmartDraw able to do anything like this? Can it import/export to a database? Does it
contain any smarts at all? Nothing on their website claims that it is anything more than a
"drop shape on drawing" program.