Quick Review: Timeline Maker Professional

I've been looking for a suitable programme to create timelines for a while now although, admittedly, not all that hard. I had been somewhat dissatisfied wth previous efforts so finally got around to trying out a range of products to see what meets my requirements.

In the end I decided on Timeline Maker Pro.

Basically, the selling point came down to the relative ease in which input data was graphically represented as either a flag- or chart-style timeline, with numerous customisation options for appearance.

Some other producs were fine for simple timelines that covered hours or days or years, but not so good at presenting events occuring at specific times on certain days over, say, a several week period.

And that's what I wanted!

There's a 7-day free trial, although the output is watermarked with a not-hard-to-miss 'Timeline Maker Trial' stamp right across the page. However, pretty much after playing around making my first timeline I knew this was the product I was looking for so made the purchase.

The cost? US$120.

Quite frankly, I thought the price was probably a bit high for a product that only did the one thing but I have to admit that it does that one thing very well.

I can always eat next week.

Anyway, some features include:

• Publishing to PDF, HTML, JPEG, GIF, TIF, BMP and PNG formats
• Ability to add attachments to chart such as pictures or video
• In-built presentation tool or integrate into MS PowerPoint

This is a Windows-only product, I'm afraid, so Apple users will have to look elsewhere.

So, the verdict?

The Good    

• Fit-for-purpose. It does exactly what it says on the box; constructs timelines. Glorious, complex, timelines.
• Customisation. You can change pretty much every detail in the representation of your timeline.

The Bad

• Nothing to complain about yet.

The Indifferent

• Pricing. Maybe a little on the high side for a one-purpose-only tool, but then compared to some other options out there, could be considered reasonable.

So at this stage, I have to give it an outright A/A+ and certainly have no hesitation in recommending this to you if timelines are your thing.

If you have any other recommendations out there, I would like to hear them as well.