Features of Inkscape

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