Mind Maps Web Tutorial

Adding Color and Style to the Mind Map

Now that the mind map is built and formatted nicely, you can personalize it with color and styles. SmartDraw offers Themes and Quick Styles to make this step fast and easy, although there are also the usual Fill and Line Style menus on the Home Tab.

Mind maps begin with a Littoral theme, but there are several others to choose from in the Theme group of the Home tab. For this example, we will apply a Coniferous Theme; select the Theme dropdown menu and click Coniferous. You will notice that the main topic becomes a lighter gray, the topics become sage green, and the subtopics become a slightly darker green. Thanks to SmartDraw's AutoStyle, each level in the mind map automatically has its own color.

The selected Theme affects the Quick Styles and Fill menus; they contain colors that match with the current Theme. To view the full menu of Themes, click the dropdown menu arrow within the Theme group.

A Quick Style applies color, line styles, font types, and more to all selected items. They will differ, depending on which Theme is selected; when the Theme is changed after applying a Quick Style to an object, a parallel Quick Style is applied. For example, in the image below, the box labeled "Quick Style Applied" has a brighter color, black text, and shadow even after the theme has been changed from Littoral to Shrubland.