Inkscape is a vector graphics editor. It is used for both

artistic Art is a diverse range of culture, cultural activity centered around works of art, ''works'' utilizing Creativity, creative or imagination, imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an express ...

and

technical illustration Technical illustration is illustration meant to visually communicate information of a technical nature. Technical illustrations can be components of technical drawings or diagrams. Technical illustrations in general aim "to generate expressive ...

s such as

cartoon A cartoon is a type of visual art that is typically drawn, frequently Animation, animated, in an realism (arts), unrealistic or semi-realistic style. The specific meaning has evolved, but the modern usage usually refers to either: an image or s ...

clip art Clip art (also clipart, clip-art) is a type of graphic art. Pieces are pre-made images used to illustrate any medium. Today, clip art is used extensively and comes in many forms, both electronic and printed. However, most clip art today is creat ...

logo A logo (abbreviation of logotype; ) is a graphic mark, emblem, or symbol used to aid and promote public identification and recognition. It may be of an abstract or figurative design or include the text of the name that it represents, as in ...

typography Typography is the art and technique of Typesetting, arranging type to make written language legibility, legible, readability, readable and beauty, appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, Point (typogra ...

diagram A diagram is a symbolic Depiction, representation of information using Visualization (graphics), visualization techniques. Diagrams have been used since prehistoric times on Cave painting, walls of caves, but became more prevalent during the Age o ...

s, and

flowchart A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a workflow or process. A flowchart can also be defined as a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm, a step-by-step approach to solving a task. The flowchart shows the steps as boxes of v ...

s. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at unlimited resolution and is not bound to a fixed number of pixels like

raster graphics upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...

. It is

free and open-source software Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term encompassing free ...

released under a

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL or simply GPL) are a series of widely used free software licenses, or ''copyleft'' licenses, that guarantee end users the freedom to run, study, share, or modify the software. The GPL was the first ...

(GPL) 2.0 or later. Inkscape uses a

file format A file format is a Computer standard, standard way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file. It specifies how bits are used to encode information in a digital storage medium. File formats may be either proprietary format, pr ...

defined by a

technical standard A technical standard is an established Social norm, norm or requirement for a repeatable technical task which is applied to a common and repeated use of rules, conditions, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and producti ...

named Scalable Vector Graphics ( SVG) as its main format, which is supported by many other applications including

web browser A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...

s. It can import and export various file formats, including

Adobe Illustrator Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor and Computer-aided design, design software developed and marketed by Adobe Inc., Adobe. Originally designed for the Apple Inc., Apple Mac (computer), Macintosh, development of Adobe Illustrator began ...

(AI), Encapsulated PostScript (EPS),

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...

(PS) and PNG. Inkscape can render primitive vector shapes (e.g.

rectangle In Euclidean geometry, Euclidean plane geometry, a rectangle is a Rectilinear polygon, rectilinear convex polygon or a quadrilateral with four right angles. It can also be defined as: an equiangular quadrilateral, since equiangular means that a ...

ellipse In mathematics, an ellipse is a plane curve surrounding two focus (geometry), focal points, such that for all points on the curve, the sum of the two distances to the focal points is a constant. It generalizes a circle, which is the special ty ...

polygon In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure made up of line segments connected to form a closed polygonal chain. The segments of a closed polygonal chain are called its '' edges'' or ''sides''. The points where two edges meet are the polygon ...

s, arcs,

spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving further away as it revolves around the point. It is a subtype of whorled patterns, a broad group that also includes concentric objects. Two-dimensional A two-dimension ...

s, stars and 3D boxes) and text. These objects may be filled with solid colors, patterns, and radial or linear

color gradient In color science, a color gradient (also known as a color ramp or a color progression) specifies a range of position-dependent colors, usually used to fill a region. In assigning colors to a set of values, a gradient is a continuous colormap, ...

s, and their borders may be stroked, both with adjustable transparency. Embedding and optional tracing of

is also supported, enabling the editor to create vector graphics from photos and other raster sources. Created shapes can be further manipulated with

geometric transformation In mathematics, a geometric transformation is any bijection of a set to itself (or to another such set) with some salient geometrical underpinning, such as preserving distances, angles, or ratios (scale). More specifically, it is a function wh ...

s, such as moving, rotating, scaling, and skewing.

History

Inkscape began in 2003 as a code fork of the Sodipodi project. Sodipodi, developed since 1999, was based on

Raph Levien Raphael Linus Levien (also known as Raph Levien) is a software developer, a member of the free software developer community, through his creation of the Advogato virtual community and his work with the free software branch of Ghostscript. From 20 ...

's GNOME Illustration Application (Gill). One of the main priorities of the Inkscape project was interface consistency and

usability Usability can be described as the capacity of a system to provide a condition for its users to perform the tasks safely, effectively, and efficiently while enjoying the experience. In software engineering, usability is the degree to which a softw ...

by following the GNOME Human Interface Guidelines. Four former Sodipodi developers (Ted Gould, Bryce Harrington, Nathan Hurst, and ''MenTaLguY'') led the fork, citing differences over project objectives, openness to third-party contributions, and technical disagreements. They said that Inkscape would focus development on implementing the complete SVG standard, whereas Sodipodi development emphasized developing a general-purpose vector graphics editor, possibly at the expense of SVG. Following the fork, Inkscape's developers changed the programming language from C to C++; adopted the

GTK GTK (formerly GIMP ToolKit and GTK+) is a free software cross-platform widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs). It is licensed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, allowing both Free software, free and ...

toolkit (formerly

GIMP Gimp or GIMP may refer to: Clothing * Bondage suit, also called a gimp suit, a type of suit used in BDSM * Bondage mask, also called a gimp mask, often worn in conjunction with a gimp suit Embroidery and crafts * Gimp (thread), an ornamental tr ...

Toolkit) C++ bindings ( gtkmm); redesigned its

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

, and added a number of new features. Inkscape fully implemented SVG 1.1 standard in version 0.91. And it continues with implementation of still unfinished SVG 1.2 and SVG 2.0 standard features like Mesh Gradients. It also support CSS standard and extends the format with its own features like node-types and LPE effects. Since 2005, Inkscape has participated in the Google Summer of Code program. Up until the end of November 2007, Inkscape's

source code repository In version control systems, a repository is a data structure that stores metadata for a set of files or directory structure. Depending on whether the version control system in use is distributed, like Git or Mercurial, or centralized, like Subv ...

was hosted by

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service founded by Geoffrey B. Jeffery, Tim Perdue, and Drew Streib in November 1999. SourceForge provides a centralized software discovery platform, including an online platform for managing and hosting open-source soft ...

. Thereafter it moved to Launchpad. In June 2017, it moved to

GitLab GitLab is a software forge primarily developed by GitLab Inc. It is available as a community edition and a commercial edition. History GitLab was created in 2011 by Ukrainian programmer Dmitriy Zaporozhets as a side project written in Rub ...

Features

Object creation

Inkscape workflow is based on vector objects. Tools allow manipulating primitive vector shapes: simple ones like rectangles, ellipses, and arcs, and more complex ones like 3D boxes with adjustable perspectives, stars, polygons, and spirals. Rendering feature that can create objects like

barcode A barcode or bar code is a method of representing data in a visual, Machine-readable data, machine-readable form. Initially, barcodes represented data by varying the widths, spacings and sizes of parallel lines. These barcodes, now commonly ref ...

s, calendars, grids,

gear A gear or gearwheel is a rotating machine part typically used to transmit rotational motion and/or torque by means of a series of teeth that engage with compatible teeth of another gear or other part. The teeth can be integral saliences or ...

s, and roulette curves (using the spirograph tool). These objects may be filled with solid colors, patterns, radial or linear

s and their borders may be stroked, both with adjustable transparency. All of those can be further edited by transformations, such as moving, rotating, scaling, and skewing, or by editing paths. Other tools allow creating Bézier curves, freehand drawing of lines (pencil), or calligraphic (brush-like) strokes which support a

graphics tablet A graphics tablet (also known as a digitizer, digital graphic tablet, pen tablet, drawing tablet, external drawing pad or digital art board) is a computer input device that enables a user to hand draw or paint images, animations and graphics, w ...

. Inkscape can write and edit text with tools available for changing font, spacing, kerning, rotation, flowing along the path or into a shape. Text can be converted to paths for further editing. The program also has layers (and objects) feature that allows organizing objects in a preferred stacking order in the canvas. Objects can be made visible or invisible, and locked or unlocked, via these features. Symbol

libraries A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

enable Inkscape to use existing symbols like logic-gate symbols or DOT pictograms. More libraries can be added as needed. Inkscape supports

image tracing In computer graphics, image tracing, raster-to-vector conversion or raster vectorization is the conversion of raster graphics into vector graphics. Background An image does not have any structure: it is just a collection of marks on paper, grai ...

, the process of extracting vector graphics from raster sources. Clones are child objects of an original parent object. Different transformations can be applied to them, such as: size, position, rotation, blur, opacity, color, and symmetry. Clones are updated live whenever the parent object changes.

Object manipulation

Every object in the drawing can be subjected to arbitrary

affine transformation In Euclidean geometry, an affine transformation or affinity (from the Latin, '' affinis'', "connected with") is a geometric transformation that preserves lines and parallelism, but not necessarily Euclidean distances and angles. More general ...

s: moving, rotating, scaling, skewing, and a configurable matrix. Transformation parameters can be specified numerically. Transformations can snap to angles, grids, guidelines and nodes of other objects, or be aligned in specified direction, spaced equally, scattered at random. Objects can be grouped. Groups of objects behave similarly to objects. Objects in a group can be edited without having to ungroup them first. The Z-order determines the order in which objects are drawn on the canvas. Objects with a high Z-order are drawn on top of objects lower in the Z-order. Order of objects can be managed either using layers, or by manually moving the object up and down in the Z-order. Layers can be locked or hidden, preventing modification and accidental selection. The ''Create Tiled Clones'' tool allows symmetrical or grid-like drawings using various plane symmetries. Appearance of objects can be further changed by using

masks A mask is an object normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance, or entertainment, and often employed for rituals and rites. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes, ...

and

clipping path A clipping path (or "deep etch") is a closed vector path, or shape, used to cut out a 2D image in image editing software. Anything inside the path will be included after the clipping path is applied; anything outside the path will be omitted f ...

s, which can be created from arbitrary objects, including groups. The style attributes are 'attached' to the source object, so after cutting/copying an object onto the clipboard, the style's attributes can be pasted to another object. Objects can also be moved by manually entering the location coordinates in the top toolbar. Even additions and subtractions can be done this way.

Operations on paths

Inkscape has a comprehensive tool set to edit paths (as they are the basic element of a vector file): * ''Edit Path by Node tool'': allows for the editing of single or multiple paths and or their associated node(s). There are four types of path nodes; Cusp (corner), Smooth, Symmetric, and Auto-Smooth. Editing is available for the positioning of nodes and their associated handles (angle and length) for Linear and Bézier paths or Spiro curves. A path segment can also be adjusted. When multiple nodes are selected, they can be moved, scaled and rotated using

keyboard shortcut In computing, a keyboard shortcut (also hotkey/hot key or key binding) is a software-based assignment of an action to one or more keys on a computer keyboard. Most Operating system, operating systems and Application software, applications come ...

or mouse controls. More nodes can be inserted into paths at arbitrary or even placements, and an effect can be used to insert nodes at predefined intervals. When nodes are deleted, the handles on remaining ones are adjusted to preserve the original shape as closely as possible. * ''Tweak tool (sculpting/painting)'': provides whole object(s) or node editing regions (parts) of an object. It can push, repel/attract, randomize positioning, shrink/enlarge, rotate, copy/delete selected whole objects. With parts of a path you can push, shrink/enlarge, repel/attract, roughen edges, blur and color. Nodes are dynamically created and deleted when needed while using this tool, so it can also be used on simple paths without pre-processing. * ''Path-Offsets; Outset, Inset, Linked or Dynamic'': can create a Linked or Dynamic (unlinked) Inset and or an Outset of an existing path which can then be fine tuned using the given Shape or Node tool. Creating a Linked Offset of a path will update whenever the original is modified. Making symmetrical (i.e., picture frame) graphics easier to edit. * ''Path-Conversion; Object to Path'': conversions of Objects; Shapes (square, circle, etc.) or Text into paths. * ''Path-Conversion; Stroke to Path'': conversions of the Stroke of a shape to a path. * ''Path-Simplify'': a given path's node count will reduce while preserving the shape. * ''Path-Operations'' ( Boolean operations): use of multiple objects to Union, Difference, Intersection, Exclusion, Division, and Cut Path. Inkscape includes a feature called ''Live Path Effects'' (LPE), which can apply various modifiers to a path. Envelope Deformation is available via the Path Effects and provides a perspective effect. There are more than a dozen of these live path effects. LPE can be stacked onto a single object and have interactive live on canvas and menu-based editing of the effects.

File formats

Inkscape's primary format is SVG 1.1, meaning that it can create and edit with the abilities and within the constraints of this format. Any other format must either be imported (converted to SVG) or exported (converted from SVG). The SVG format is using the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) standard internally. Inkscape's implementation of SVG and CSS standards is incomplete. Most notably, it does not support

animation Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...

natively. Inkscape has multilingual support, particularly for

complex scripts Complex text layout (CTL) or complex text rendering is the typesetting of writing systems in which the shape or positioning of a grapheme depends on its relation to other graphemes. The term is used in the field of software internationalizatio ...

. Formats that used the UniConvertor library are not supported beyond the 1.0 release. A workaround is to have a parallel installation of version 0.92.x.

Other features

* ''

XML Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a markup language and file format for storing, transmitting, and reconstructing data. It defines a set of rules for encoding electronic document, documents in a format that is both human-readable and Machine-r ...

Editor'' for direct manipulation of the SVG XML structure * Support for SVG filter effects * Editing of

Resource Description Framework The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is a method to describe and exchange graph data. It was originally designed as a data model for metadata by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It provides a variety of syntax notations and formats, of whi ...

(RDF), a

World Wide Web Consortium The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working together in ...

(W3C) metadata information model * Command-line interface, exposes format conversion functions and full-featured GUI scripting * More than sixty interface languages * Extensible to new file formats, effects and other features * Mathematical diagramming, with various uses of

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latices are found in nature, but synthetic latices are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a wikt:milky, milky fluid, which is present in 10% of all floweri ...

* Experimental support for scripting * lib2Geom is now also external usable. 2Geom is a computational geometry library, originally developed for Inkscape. While developed for Inkscape, it is a library that can be used from any application. It provides support for basic geometric algebra, paths, distortions, Boolean operations, plotting implicit functions,

non-uniform rational B-spline Non-uniform rational basis spline (NURBS) is a mathematical model using B-spline, basis splines (B-splines) that is commonly used in computer graphics for representing curves and Surface (mathematics), surfaces. It offers great flexibility and pr ...

(NURBS) and more. 2Geom is free software released under LGPL 2.1 or MPL 1.1.

Platform support

The latest version of Inkscape 1.0.x (and older line 0.92.x) is available for

Linux Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

7+, and

macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...

10.11–10.15 platforms. Inkscape is packaged with AppImage, Flatpak, PPA, Snap and source by all major

Linux distribution A Linux distribution, often abbreviated as distro, is an operating system that includes the Linux kernel for its kernel functionality. Although the name does not imply product distribution per se, a distro—if distributed on its own—is oft ...

s (including

Debian Debian () is a free and open-source software, free and open source Linux distribution, developed by the Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock in August 1993. Debian is one of the oldest operating systems based on the Linux kerne ...

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed primarily of free and open-source software. Developed by the British company Canonical (company), Canonical and a community of contributors under a Meritocracy, meritocratic gover ...

, Fedora,

OpenSUSE openSUSE () is a free and open-source software, free and open-source Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. It is offered in two main variations: ''Tumbleweed'', an upstream rolling release distribution, and ''Leap'', a stable r ...

) with GTK+ 3.24+ (0.92.x with GTK+ 2.20+ for older Linux). Inkscape can also be installed via

FreeBSD ports The FreeBSD Ports collection is a package management system for the FreeBSD operating system. Ports in the collection vary with contributed software. There were 38,487 ports available in February 2020 and 36,504 in September 2024. It has also be ...

and

pkgsrc pkgsrc (''package source'') is a package management system for Unix-like operating systems. It was forked from the FreeBSD ports collection in 1997 as the primary package management system for NetBSD. Since then it has evolved independently; in 1 ...

, the latter being native to NetBSD, but well-supported on most

POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX; ) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines application programming interfaces (APIs), along with comm ...

platforms, including GNU/

Illumos Illumos (stylized as "illumos") is a partly free and open-source Unix operating system. It has been developed since 2010 and is based on OpenSolaris, after the discontinuation of that product by Oracle. It comprises a kernel, device driver ...

, and

. , Wacom tablet support for GTK 3 is in a reviving project. Version 1.0.x includes GTK 3 and Wacom support depending on the necessary Wacom Linux or Unix driver.

macOS

An issue had affected all GTK3-based apps on macOS Ventura (macOS 13), making the app unresponsive to certain mouse events.

is used by many different programs. GTK is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is software available under a Software license, license that grants users the right to use, modify, and distribute the software modified or not to everyone free of charge. FOSS is an inclusive umbrella term ...

cross-platform software Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform soft ...

widget toolkit A widget toolkit, widget library, GUI toolkit, or UX library is a library (computing), library or a collection of libraries containing a set of graphical control elements (called ''widgets'') used to construct the graphical user interface (GUI) of ...

for creating

graphical user interface A graphical user interface, or GUI, is a form of user interface that allows user (computing), users to human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through Graphics, graphical icon (computing), icons and visual indicators such ...

s (GUIs). Inkscape 1.2.2 was also affected and the web site of Inkscape recommended not to install it on Ventura as long as a stable solution was not available. These issues were fixed from version 1.3. Most of the compatibility issues with

Apple silicon Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture family, ARM architecture. They are used in nearly all of the company's devices including Mac ...

processors (M1, M2 and M3 families) appear to have also been resolved from version 1.3 and the macOS download site for Inkscape offers two options: the Intel version and the arm64 corresponding to the Apple Silicon M family.

Release history

Reception

In its 2012 Best of Open Source Software Awards, ''

InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (''IW'') is an American information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a Web-only publication. Its parent company is International Data Group, and its sister pu ...

'' gave Inkscape an award for being one of the best open-source desktop applications, commending its typographic controls and ability to directly edit the XML text of its documents. ''

PC Magazine ''PC Magazine'' (shortened as ''PCMag'') is an American computer magazine published by Ziff Davis. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009. Publication of online editions started in late 1994 and continues . Overview ''PC Mag ...

''s February 2019 review was rather mixed, giving the application three out of five. It criticized the interface's graphics and lack of optimization for stylus support, the application's poor interoperability with other graphics editors, unwieldy text formatting controls, and the quality of the Mac version. However, it did praise the ability to add custom filters and extensions, the Inkscape community's passion for creating and sharing them, and the precise path and placement tools. The review concluded that whilst Inkscape "boasts outstanding features and a passionate user base for a free program ... it's not suitable for busy professionals." In January 2020, ''

TechRadar ''TechRadar'' is an online technology publication owned by Future plc. It has editorial teams in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia that provide news and reviews of tech products and gadgets. It was launched in 2008 and expanded t ...

'' gave Inkscape a positive rating of four stars out of five. It lauded the wide range of editing tools and support for many file formats, but noted that the application's processing can be slow. It is considered Inkscape to be a good free alternative to proprietary graphics editors such as

. According to ''It's FOSS'' in July 2023, the 1.3 release of Inkscape mainly focuses on making the user's workflow more organized to work more efficiently, with some new features making it a better alternative to Adobe Illustrator.

Gallery

File:Inkscapesplash.png, Splash page for v0.45 File:Inkscapemain.png, Main window File:Openinkscape.png, File menu File:Inkscape 1.2 Screenshot On Xubuntu 20.04.png, Edited an old SVG File File:Spain.Girona.Catedral.svg, Cathedral plan File:Playstation3vector.svg,

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). It is the successor to the PlayStation 2, and both are part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. The PS3 was first released on ...

File:Floral 01 nevit.svg, Floral drawing File:Stardesconfied.svg, Simple Smile File:Mahuri.svg, Manga drawing File:Silversmith-inkscape.svg, Raster to vector comparison File:DeliveryVehicle-B.svg, Delivery vehicle

References

External links

* {{Authority control 2003 software Cross-platform free software Free and open-source software Free diagramming software Free graphics software Free multilingual software Free software programmed in C++ Free vector graphics editors Graphics software that uses GTK MacOS graphics-related software Portable software Raster to vector conversion software Scalable Vector Graphics Software forks Software that uses Cairo (graphics) Vector graphics editors for Linux Windows graphics-related software Software that was rewritten in C++