For some of the things we did for the wedding, we needed to produce graphics to be inserted in programs, printed on tins, and so on. For all of these, I used the free open-source editor Inkscape.
I’ve used it for a long time, and I like it because:
- It’s free to download and use, and open-source
- It’s multi-platform, so it runs on my Linux box and Cassie’s Macbook
- It’s a vector graphics editor, so moving and arranging shapes is easy
- It can open PDF files (you’ll see why this is useful) as well as many other formats, including
- SVG, which it uses as its native format
The reason PDF import is useful is that when the invitations and RSVP cards were being designed, we were sent a PDF proof of the design for approval before they went to print. I was able to open this file, and grab certain bits of the design to tweak for use in the other items we needed graphics for. A bit naughty, I guess, but whatever – I’m no challenge to a professional designer.
Inkscape is currently at version 0.48.1, so it’s still very much a work in progress, but there is an active development community, and it’s pretty much the only game in town for open-source vector editing that isn’t trying to be a business flowchart generator.
There are some quirks, like needing to run a weird X11 thing on Cassie’s Macbook, and some of the tools aren’t that intuitive, but you can’t beat the price, and I like using open-source software. I may even drop some coins in their box.