If you haven't already downloaded and installed this program, the guide's article FreeMind – Mind Mapping will show you what to do.

Click on the FreeMind desktop icon, or launch the program from the program menu (Start, then Programs, then FreeMind, and finally FreeMind.) If you've never used the program before, you'll be presented with a new empty mind map, otherwise click on File, then New. You should now see something similar to this:

Now save your new mind map. From the menu bar click on File, then Save. Choose the folder and file name (this is an exercise, so I suggest using a temporary folder, and exercise.mm as the file name), then click on Save.

FreeMind is designed to reduce the number of mouse clicks. You don't need to focus on a node by clicking on it – just move the mouse over the node itself, the background of the node becomes grey, and you're ready to start.

Type Exercise, then Enter, and the root node (the only node up to now) will have the title “Exercise”. Press Insert and you'll get a child node. Name it Rich Text. Press Enter and you'll get a sibling of this new node. Name it Links. Press Insert and name this child node FreeMind. Press Enter and name this sibling Google Search. Press Enter and name this sibling Disk. You should now have something like this:

Certainly, this is very helpful when you're laying out your map – there is less work to do. Move the mouse around and the focused node (grey background, remember) will change as the mouse pointer passes over it.

Unfortunately this can cause problems, too. Move the mouse over the “FreeMind” node, to give it focus, then move the mouse left to the icon bar, and click on an icon. I wanted the icon to appear in “FreeMind”, but as I moved the mouse “Exercise” got the focus, and so it received the icon instead:

Press Ctrl-Z, to undo the last action, which was adding the icon. Now try again, move the mouse pointer back over the “FreeMind” node, so it gets the focus, but this time press the Shift key and then move the mouse left to the icons. Once there, stop pressing the Shift key and click on an icon. Now the correct node gets the icon. This works with the Alt or Ctrl key pressed, too.

Next, move the mouse over the “Links” node, and click on it. All of the child nodes will collapse (they disappear from view.) Click again, and they will reappear. As your mind map becomes larger, you will want to collapse nodes, so that you have more space to concentrate on a specific area of the map.

Press Ctrl-S to save your work, or from the menu bar click File, then Save. Close the application, and take a break. I hope that the elegance of this program has impressed you as much as it did me.

Although I discussed associating the .mm extension with FreeMind in the installation article, it is better to click on the desktop icon, or use the program menu to launch FreeMind, rather than double clicking on a mind map file from Explorer. This is because FreeMind can only find its help file if it is launched from the same folder as the program itself. True, this is a bug, but I know from experience that it's very difficult to fix for a Java programmer, as it's more of a problem with the Java Runtime Environment.

Alternatively, drag the mind map file from Explorer and drop it onto the FreeMind desktop icon. This will launch FreeMind, which will then open your mind map file. By the way, most desktop icons work this way too.

Up to now, all the child nodes are on the right hand side. Move the mouse over the “Rich Text” node, then drag it (press the left mouse button and keep it pressed) to the left half of the “Exercise” node. The left half will appear shaded, now drop the node (release the left mouse button.)

The “Rich Text” node is now on the left of the “Exercise” node.

Move over the “Links” node and click on it to expand the child nodes. Move over “Disk”, and press Ctrl-Up. This moves the “Disk” node above “Google Search”, as below:

Of course, you can move a node down using Ctrl-Down.

Now I have decided that the “Google Search” node should be under “Exercise” and not “Links”. Move over “Google Search” and press Ctrl-X, then move over “Exercise” and press Ctrl-V. The mind map should now look like this:

If you move the mouse pointer to the side of the node with the edge connected to the parent node (left hand side for “Links”, right hand side for “Rich Text”), an oval appears which allows you to reposition the node.

To make a single change to a node or its edges (the lines between nodes), use the contextual menu by right clicking with the node in focus. Then choose the property or style you want to change:

To make multiple modifications, however, it is more convenient to focus the node, and then choose the properties and styles from the menu and toolbars. I won't go into all the details here, but you can change fonts, font sizes, font colours, and backgrounds fairly intuitively. Just be careful if you use the menu bar, that when the sub menu closes, you don't inadvertently change the node focus, as you move back to the menu bar again.

You can write quite complicated rich text, using HTML. Personally, I would have preferred something like Wiki markup instead, as this is usually easier to learn. However, the advantages are that you can cut and paste from a browser, or HTML editor. Move the mouse over the “Rich Text” node, bring up the contextual menu by right clicking, choose Edit Long Node..., then type:

FreeMind also allows you to make any node into a hyperlink. This can be a World Wide Web address (URL or URI), or a reference to a file on your hard disk. This is an exceedingly valuable feature.

Not only can you create maps that work much like a browser's bookmark database, but you can also link to files on your hard disk that can be opened within the mind map.

I used this technique for the Pragmatic Computer User's Guide mind map, so that I could open any of the guide's OpenOffice.org documents directly from the specifications mind map. Of course, you can also use this feature to link to other mind maps, especially if the original map becomes large or unwieldy.

Move the mouse over the “FreeMind” node, right click for the contextual menu, then click on Insert, then Hyperlink (Text field)..., and type http://freemind.sourceforge.net, then press Enter. Move over “Disk”, right click for the contextual menu, then click on Insert, then Hyperlink (File chooser)..., and select a file, such as a text document – I chose the license.txt file in /Program Files/FreeMind.

You can visually group together a node and its offspring, by adding a cloud. Move the mouse over the “Links” node, right click for the contextual menu, then click on Insert, then Cloud.

The exercise mind map should now look something like this:

If you click on the “FreeMind” node it will open the FreeMind web site in your browser (make sure you're connected to the Internet first.) Clicking on the “Disk” node will open the text document using the associated editor. You can still collapse and expand nodes with hyperlinks by pressing Alt-Page Down, and Alt-Page Up, respectively.

What about “Google Search”? I have left this node as an exercise for you. Why not add an image to it? (Insert, then Image (File chooser or link)....)

FreeMind prints the mind map using two methods. You can print the mind map on a single page, or if the mind map is very large, you can set a scale factor, and print over several pages, which you can then physically paste together.

Printing to a single page is the easiest method, but you may end up with unreadable text if the map is large.

Using multiple pages is more difficult, because there is no preview to show how many pages will be used. You can waste a lot of paper trying to get things right. The display zoom factor is also taken into account when printing. To make things easier, I suggest you set the display zoom factor to 100% before attempting to print a multi-page mind map.

From the menu bar, click on File, then Page Setup..., which will display the print scaling dialog:

If you're going to print the whole map on one page then check the “Fit to one Page” box, otherwise uncheck it and select a zoom factor. Try printing to one page first – this will give you some idea for a good guess at the zoom factor when printing multi-page maps. Next, click on OK.

The next dialog displayed is the page setup dialog:

Set the paper size, orientation, and margins, then click on OK. I set the orientation to portrait, as my mind maps tend to be wider than they are deep.

Now you can print the mind map, by clicking on File from the menu bar, then Print..., which displays the standard print dialog, where you can choose the printer. Next click on OK to start the print job.

As an alternative to actually printing the mind map, you can convert it into a PNG or JPEG image (which is very useful if you want to include the mind map in a document), a PDF file, or different types of HTML file.

The program is still a little weak in some areas, especially printing mind maps, but then again, the version number indicates that it is still at an early development stage.

Overall, I am very impressed with the ideas and features of this program.

Obviously, FreeMind's help documentation is a good and immediate reference point, and is itself a mind map. Launch FreeMind, click on Help, then Documentation.

Shailaja Kumar has written an excellent user's manual entitled “FreeMind: Open Source Mind-Mapping Software” for FreeMind version 0.8.0, which explains all of the functionality from getting started to advanced usage.

Eric Hebert has a Mind Mapping resources page, 99 Mind Mapping Resources, Tools, and Tips, which provides links to mind mapping software, resources, training, and examples.