Karbon (formerly Karbon14, Kontour, and KIllustrator) is a
vector graphics editor. It is a component of
Calligra Suite, an integrated
graphic art and
office suite by
KDE
KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...
. The name is a play on KDE and the radioactive isotope
Carbon-14
Carbon-14, C-14, or radiocarbon, is a radioactive isotope of carbon with an atomic nucleus containing 6 protons and 8 neutrons. Its presence in organic materials is the basis of the radiocarbon dating method pioneered by Willard Libby and coll ...
.
On 26 February 2012, the lead developer clarified on the Calligra development
mailing list
A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...
that the application’s name is simply "Karbon" without "14".
As of March 2020, the project is not supported and looking for maintainer.
User interface
Dockers
Dockers are Qwidgets that you may attach to the main window or float freely. You may attach them one over another, resulting in tabs.
Stroke and fill
Stroke and fill allows you to set the outline or stroke colour, and the fill colour.
=Fill options
=
* Empty indicated by an "X" button
* Solid colour
* Gradient
* pattern Warning, patterns are
rasters. If, using the Pattern Edit Tool, displaying a highly zoomed in area of a pattern may cause it to degrade in quality.
* Even-odd fill
* Winding fill
Tools
The tools Docker allows you to select which tool you want. Not all tools are always available. Example: the path editing tool is only available when a shape is selected.
Shape properties
The use of the Shape Properties docker is Unknown.
Toolbars
Toolbars allow you to display option otherwise some were in drop down menus. they may be edited by left clicking and selecting configure toolbars. The same option is under Settings. You may toggle which toolbars are visible by going to Settings, Shown toolbars and ticking them from there.
Tools
Shape handling tool
The Shape Handling tool allows you to select shapes. Once selected you may move, resize, pull, and rotate the shape. To resize a shape move your cursor to one of the corners of the selection box. Two arrows pointing in conflicting directions will appear. Then click and drag to resize the shape. If you want to resized it proportionally, hold down shift when Clicking and dragging. To move a shape around the canvas, click within the selected shapes selection box. Then hold your click and drag. This will move the shape.
Connect shapes tool
The Connect Shapes tool allows you to visually link shapes with auto updating black lines. This is more geared to flow charts.
Create path tool
The Create Path Tool allows you to draw vector lines and connect then to make shapes with the use of
Bézier curve
A Bézier curve ( ) is a parametric curve used in computer graphics and related fields. A set of discrete "control points" defines a smooth, continuous curve by means of a formula. Usually the curve is intended to approximate a real-world shape t ...
. If you are coming from using
Adobe Illustrator it may help to think of the Create Path Tool as
Illustrato's Pen Tool. Karbon's create Path Tool differs from its Freehand Drawing Tool which does not allow you to edit the curves and points while drawing.
Supported formats
Loading support
*.
ODG
*.
SVG
*.
WPG
*.
WMF
*
.EPS/PS
Writing support
*.
ODG
*.
SVG
*.
PNG Warning, this is a
raster
Raster may refer to:
* Raster graphics, graphical techniques using arrays of pixel values
* Raster graphics editor, a computer program
* Raster scan, the pattern of image readout, transmission, storage, and reconstruction in television and compu ...
format which may cause poorer quality output.
*.
JPEG
JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
*.
WMF
*.
Krita document or .kra Warning, this is a
raster
Raster may refer to:
* Raster graphics, graphical techniques using arrays of pixel values
* Raster graphics editor, a computer program
* Raster scan, the pattern of image readout, transmission, storage, and reconstruction in television and compu ...
format which may cause poorer quality output.
*.
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
available from the File drop down menu. Not available from save dialog in filters.
See also
*
Comparison of office suites
*
Comparison of vector graphics editors
*
Open Clip Art Library
*
List of free and open source software packages
This is a list of free and open-source software packages, computer software licensed under free software licenses and open-source licenses. Software that fits the Free Software Definition may be more appropriately called free software; the GNU p ...
*
Inkscape
*
sK1
References
{{Vector graphics editors
Calligra Suite
Free software
Free vector graphics editors
Graphics software that uses Qt
Vector graphics editors for Linux