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>I also use FreeHand for maps, and find it to be wonderful.  I use an older
>version (4.0 for Macintosh), and find only one flaw, if you can call it
>that.  I know it isn't a GIS, but I wish it would generate topology.  Then,
>when shading adjacent polygons, I wouldn't need to duplicate the polygon
>border in another layer.  To those with experience with the newer versions
>of FH, how do they work in this regard?  FreeHand does almost everything I
>need, with this exception, and I find it hard to justify the expense of an
>upgrade if it won't do much more than my current version.
 
I didn't care much for 4.0, but 5.0 fixed a lot of things with the post-3.1
interface change, and 5.5 cleaned up a bit more.  Things like text styles
and the ability to rasterize files into PICTs are nice features, and the
upgrade is pretty inexpensive.
 
As for topology, no.  I'm hoping someone will create a little program that
can mediate between a spreadsheet or database and the path objects in FH,
thus allowing us to choose objects and change their color based on a lookup
table.  Voila!  Good-looking choropleth maps.
 
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Dennis McClendon, Chicago CartoGraphics      [log in to unmask]