Inkscape is professional quality vector graphics software which runs on Windows, Mac OS X and GNU/Linux. It is used by design professionals and hobbyists worldwide, for creating a wide variety of graphics such as illustrations, icons, logos, diagrams, maps and web graphics. Inkscape uses the W3C open standard SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) as its native format.

Inkscape has sophisticated drawing tools with capabilities comparable to Adobe Illustrator, CorelDRAW and Xara Xtreme. It can import and export various file formats, including SVG, AI, EPS, PDF, PS and PNG. It has a comprehensive feature set, a simple interface, multi-lingual support and is designed to be extensible; users can customize Inkscape's functionality with add-ons.

The Inkscape project has a growing international user community, and many learning materials exist to help get you started with your creations. Help and support is provided by the community, and there are lots of ways for you to get involved if you want to help improve the Inkscape project.

Object creation

• Drawing: pencil tool (freehand drawing with simple paths), pen tool (creating Bézier curves and straight lines), calligraphy tool (freehand drawing using filled paths representing calligraphic strokes)

• Shape tools: rectangles (may have rounded corners), ellipses (includes circles, arcs, segments), stars/polygons (can be rounded and/or randomized), spirals

• Text tool (multi-line text, full on-canvas editing)

• Embedded bitmaps (with a command to create and embed bitmaps of selected objects)

• Clones ("live" linked copies of objects), including a tool to create patterns and arrangements of clones

Object manipulation

• Transformations (moving, scaling, rotating, skewing), both interactively and by specifying exact numeric values

• Z-order operations (raising and lowering)

• Grouping objects ("select in group" without ungrouping, or "enter the group" making it a temporary layer)

• Layers (lock and/or hide individual layers, rearrange them, etc; layers can form a hierarchical tree)

• Alignment and distribution commands

Fill and stroke

• Color selector (RGB, HSL, CMYK, color wheel, CMS)

• Color picker tool

• Copy/paste style

• A gradient editor capable of multi-stop gradients

• Pattern fills (bitmap/vectors)

• Dashed strokes, with many predefined dash patterns

• Path markers (ending, middle and/or beginning marks, e.g. arrowheads)

Operations on paths

• Node editing: moving nodes and Bezier handles, node alignment and distribution, etc.

• Converting to path (for text objects or shapes), including converting stroke to path

• Boolean operations

• Path simplification, with variable threshold

• Path insetting and outsetting, including dynamic and linked offset objects

• Bitmap tracing (both color and monochrome paths)

Text support

• Multi-line text

• Uses any installed outline fonts, including right-to-left scripts

• Kerning, letterspacing, linespacing adjustments

• Text on path (both text and path remain editable)

• Text in shape (fill shape following stroke)

Rendering

• Fully anti-aliased display

• Alpha transparency support for display and PNG export

• Complete "as you drag" rendering of objects during interactive transformations

File formats

• Perfectly compliant SVG format file generation and editing

• Live watching and editing the document tree in the XML editor

• PNG, OpenDocument Drawing, DXF, sk1, PDF, EPS and PostScript export formats and more

• Command line options for export and conversions

Voronoi / Delaunay Triangulation

This screenshot from Inkscape shows some of the results of the new Voronoi / Delaunay Triangulation plugin. Thanks go to Ryan Lerch for making the screenshot available!

Symbols Dialog

Inkscape has a new Symbols dialog, with which you can manage symbols. The symbols can come from libraries that are already installed, or from a library that you install, or custom symbols that you create on the canvas.

Ferrari

This illustration of a Ferrari by Gilles Pinard was done by hand without any tracing. Gradients, blurs, and other various other techniques really bring this image to life.

Blur

Inkscape now has a preference that allows users to take advantage of multi-threading for the Gaussian Blur filter. This filter makes one of the biggest impacts on Inkscape's performance when in use. Mariana Sing uses blur throughout this image for subtle details, smooth color transitions, and numerous effects. Thankfully the blur operation is now faster than before when using a multi-core or multi-processor computer.

Webdesign Text

Inkscape has brought many improvements to the Text Tool. There are now controls for superscript, subscript, line spacing, letter spacing, word spacing, horizontal kerning, vertical kerning, and rotation. Thanks to Development Seed for contributing this screenshot.

Multipath

After many years and countless requests, Inkscape now supports editing multiple paths at the same time. Previously editing with the Node Tool had a limitation of working with only one path at a time. Thanks to happyline for the wonderful example screenshot.

Moonlight Views

Inkscape has added a Spray Tool to quickly and easily spray multiple copies of items. With the parameters for rotation and size it allows creating effects that previously would take much longer to achieve. Thanks to DiSmeCha for contributing this screenshot.