3 Open Source Design Apps: The Pro, the Novice and the Trainee

As is the case with a lot of types of software applications, choosing a graphic design app is as much about your personal habits and preexisting work methods as it is about features and functions. Three open source design apps -- Inkscape, OpenOffice Draw and Xara Xtreme -- are well-equipped to take on common design tasks. Picking one will depend on your personal intuition and experience.

The advantages of open source software really become evident when it comes to using design applications. This category of software is one that not everyone needs -- that is, unless you need software to help you create illustrations for Web design or print publication projects.

The Linux OS has a bevy of design apps that go head-to-head against hallmark design applications for the Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Windows and Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) Mac OS X platforms such as Adobe Illustrator CS5, Adobe Freehand, CorelDraw Graphics Suite X5and Microsoft Visio. I am not referring to standard intro-level drawing apps with variations of "Paint" in their names.
Three Linux apps -- Inkscape, OpenOffice Draw and Xara Xtreme -- come fully loaded with professional-strength tools to handle on-screen illustration tasks.
You will need to spend some time with each of these apps, however. Deciding which one works best for you will take familiarity and hands-on practice. If you did not use design software on another platform, no doubt you will settle on a preference based on how intuitively you take to the packages. But if you have a working knowledge of a design app from another platform, you will find one or more of these Linux apps to be very similar in look and feel.
Typical drawing needs for design applications are creating icons, designing Web pages and making marketing materials. These three Linux apps are well-tooled to handle these activities and much more.

Inking the Draw

Inkscape is based on the use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). This is an open XML-based W3C standard. This app supports many advanced SVG features such as markers, clones and alpha blending. It is available for Linux, Windows and OS X platforms.
The use of SVG formatting makes a big difference. Most graphic apps are based around bitmap or raster graphics. This locks in a specific resolution and stores an image as a grid of pixels.
Instead of the raster scheme, Inkscape's use of vector graphics gives its files a resolution-independent description of the actual shapes and objects visible in the image. Unlike a rasterization engine, SVG does not need these details for plotting each line and curve at any resolution or zoom level.