A great deal of business and day-to-day information can be organized in a hierarchical fashion. Each of us is a member of a family. The names of all our ancestors can be organized into a family tree that is a hierarchical structure. Detailed information about the employees in any business organization can be pictured as an inverted tree or a pyramid with the company president at the root of the tree or the apex of the pyramid. The parts of the human body or the systems that make up an aircraft can be described hierarchically. The list of information that can be organized hierarchically is endless.

The program VIDICARTA allows you to draw and print charts of any hierarchy in the traditional topdown manner. You do not have to do any drag or drop or positioning of any of the blocks that make up the hierarchy. Using the main menu, the items in the hierarchy are entered starting from the top. Each item can contain a name plus rich text and/or pictures. At any time a picture of the hierarchy can be obtained by selecting a node (top, branch or leaf) and choosing "layout" in the "Edit" menu. A dialog will appear and display the progress of the automatic layout process. Once this is finished, the layout can be displayed by selecting "layout" in the "View" menu. Example charts are provided in the "chartdata" folder under the installed directory, typically "C:\program files\vidicarta". Even a hundred page long chart is displayed in a few minutes. The chart is redrawn swiftly after any change. Further, the chart will be automatically redrawn when the paper size is changed.