EDge21 Freeware Festival - Inkscape

Today's fabulous Freeware Festival selection is the vector graphics editor Inkscape

Inkscape is an open source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

Inkscape development began in late 2003 and, though still a work in progress, supports many advanced SVG features such as markers, clones, alpha blending, etc. Great care has been taken in designing a streamlined interface. It is very easy to edit nodes, perform complex path operations, trace bitmaps and much more.

Inkscape screenshot

Users report successfully implementing Inkscape in a variety of very different projects such as web graphics, technical diagrams, icons, creative art, logos, and maps.

All transformations (including scaling and rotating) have keyboard shortcuts with consistent modifiers. The most common operations (such as transformations, zooming, z-order) have convenient one-key shortcuts.

Capabilities:

• Object creation
• Object manipulation
• Object styling
• Paths operations
• Text support
• Rendering
• Collaborative whiteboarding
• Extensibility

Inkscape in Action: Drawing with Inkscape

See an Inkscape basics tutorial - Introduction to Inkscape Graphics Editor - Part 2 by HotButteredIT

Link to Inkscape's Frequently Asked Questions

Inkscape is cross-platform and runs on Windows 2000+, Mac OS X, and Linux.

Related articles by Zemanta

• 35 Tutorials to create amazing Vector Graphics using Inkscape (web2list.com)
• Create Project Wiki: SVG Filter Effects in Inkscape (create.freedesktop.org)