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Contents 1 Article aim and impartiality 1.1 Impartiality 1.1.1 Strong free program bias? 1.2 Article Aim 1.2.1 Rewrite 1.2.2 Update 1.3 Requested move 2 Basic features 2.1 What is "control point limit"? 2.2 OS comparison 2.3 Needs more file types (import/export) compatibility 2.3.1 Corel Paint Shop Pro XI 2.3.2 Importing EPS/PDF to Inkscape? 2.3.3 LaTeX export? 2.3.4 WMF and EMF import/export 2.4 Needs more vector graphics editors 2.4.1 Xfig 2.4.2 Microsoft Expression 2.4.3 Sodipodi & OpenDraw? 2.4.4 ACD Canvas 2.5 Price comparisons not like-to-like 2.6 Sotfware Problems 2.7 Please correct/standardise the maximum zoom levels! 2.8 Multilingual Support ? 2.9 Lineform 2.10 The term "steeper learning curve" can mean opposite things 2.11 Fireworks

[edit] Article aim and impartiality

[edit] Impartiality

Oh boy. In its current state, the article is pretty much a joke. No real comparison between apps is being made. I added some links and put it into a sensible stub category. I'm afraid I don't know anything about the various editors, so I can't put even a stub-worthy amount of information into this. --Moritz 9 July 2005 13:31 (UTC)

• What this article really needs, to be worthy of its current title is a table actually comparing the features of the programs depending on certain criteria. An example of this is in the Comparison of operating systems and Comparison of text editors articles, but comparing just CorelDraw and Illustrator wouldn't be very informative to say it's comparing all vector graphics editors - So Freehand should be added as well. --Wackymacs 07:39, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Strong free program bias?

It seems like there is a significant bias in the tone adopted toward the various programs discussed here. Illustrator is the industry standard for a reason, and after the learning curve it is a more powerful program than the open-source options. It seems to me like the Inkscape hype should be toned down, and the Illustrator section fleshed out, if this article intends to be an honest comparison. Each Inkscape feature mentioned as notable has been included in Illustrator for several years. It seems misleading to gush about Inkscape's use of SVG, and criticize for only adopting SVG "recently", given that Adobe has been involved in the definition of SVG longer than Inkscape has existed as a product. I appreciate that open source software is beneficial to the society, but this article should attempt neutrality. --jacobolus (t) 14:10, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

That prose at the beginning of the article was added by one user, and I guess no one else noticed. I was going to fix it up but it slipped my mind and never got done. So feel free to go on and heaviy modify and change the text, as it is not the result of several editors going over it but rather just one persons opinion. Qutezuce 05:37, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

• I have a problem with the use of the term "industry standard". Better for me is "market leader". Adobe Illustrator is great and all but standard suggests to me that it uses a format or had a GUI on which everyone else models their software. Last I looked .ai files had a lot of proprietary junk that didn't import well elsewhere. If we mean "sold the most copies" or "most widely used" we should say that, "industry standard" is vacuous and of uncertain meaning - marketing speak if you will. : Pbhj 15:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
• "industry standard" means precisely what it says: in the industries that use such products (graphic design, prepress, press, advertising), the standard piece of software in use is Adobe Illustrator. No value judgement is being made. it is a statement of fact, quantified through market share. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.149.130 (talk) 20:50, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm interested in a comparison of market share for the different editors. I can't seem to find any up to date information. Can anyone help? 204.186.62.184 (talk) 10:27, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Article Aim

[edit] Rewrite

I rewrote the intro, removing the redundant "what is vector" and "what is SVG" information that is plentiful elsewhere. This article must primarily consist of tables with a brief intro. I'm also going to remove the paragraphs on individual edutors, moving that information if necessary to those editor's articles. Trapolator 02:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Update

I tried to fix what I thought were the most blatant problems, and added a couple more apps to flesh out the description. I didn't put them in the chart, though someone probably should. There is still much to do to fix this article up. There is currently no mention of PS/PDF, which are still the dominant outputs from vector graphics editors. SVG is nice, which is why both open source developers and Adobe support the standard, but PDF is still far more common.--jacobolus (t) 14:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Requested move

I've requested a move to vector graphics editors, as that is the proper encyclopedic name for an article on vector graphics editors. —donhalcon^╤ 17:18, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Oppose. For all major types of software, we have a "what is" article, a list article, and a comparison article. They are different for a reason. Vector graphics editors should not be an exception. Trapolator 02:17, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Basic features

[edit] What is "control point limit"?

How to determine the maximum objects count? I'm sure most have this unlimited, i.e. the actual limit depends on the computer memory. How can we compare this parameter objectively??

Control points are the points used to control the objects, e.g. the points that form a line or path. Maybe there is a better term for this I don't know. I don't have much knowledge on vector editors, I just made a simple table that others can make more complete. It was difficult to make up the points that the editors could be compared on, because mostly all the modern editors can do all the basic stuff. Maybe a table with advanced features can show the differences better. One thing that should be added at least is file formats. --WS 00:06, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] OS comparison

Including linux, Bsd and "unix" is a bit misleading given the similarities between those OS. BeOS could be included.

• I think this is a bad move because this is how it is on the comparison of text editors page. Adding BeOS would be a waste of time because these editors were never made for BeOS anyway, and the original BeOS is 10 years old now. — Wackymacs 06:40, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Needs more file types (import/export) compatibility

[edit] Corel Paint Shop Pro XI

PSP supports vector based editing, should it be added?

[edit] Importing EPS/PDF to Inkscape?

What is the extension that enables importing EPS to Inkscape? --Hautala 18:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

For that matter, is there really something that enables importing PDF to Inkscape? The wiki on the topic has said no for over a year. I'm changing the Inkscape/PDF import cell to No unless there's a cite.--Goldfndr 17:40, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

The devel versions can now import PDFs, don't know about EPS. --212.149.190.135 10:32, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Version 0.46 (released in March) supports PDF import. I wasn't sure if the wiki should be cited. Looks like PS support is still via external scripts, so "Partial" seems appropriate there. Proxima (talk) 19:37, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] LaTeX export?

Also, what in the world does it mean for a vector graphics editor to export LaTeX files? Are those eps files that can be used in a LaTeX document? If that's the case I do this all the time with Illustrator. Otherwise, I've never seen complex "vector graphics" written in TeX.--jacobolus (t) 14:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

One of the mains strengths of LateX is the rendering of mathematics. For a program to support LateX export it outputs the diagram to a Latex file using possibly pstricks and then this LateX diagram is compiled and rendered to PDF or EPS format by LateX. Thus the user gets the advantages of a GUI layout drawing tool and the quality of mathematical typesetting offered by LateX. Simple production of EPS or PDF files from within the drawing program are not good enough because they do not render the LateX mathematics. Examples of programs that can do this include jPicEdt, Dia, LateXdraw and Xfig.

LaTeX IS a vector graphics production environment. The fact that it's primary application is mathematical typesetting is misleading in the context of this article. LaTeX includes the vector graphics engine MetaPost, developed by Bell Labs. It is a metalanguage built on top of PostScript, and is extremely powerful. It is unfortunate that it is not better known.

[edit] WMF and EMF import/export

It would be nice to have WMF and EMF compatibility table as they are the native Windows vector graphic formats. -AC (2007-08-23)

[edit] Needs more vector graphics editors

On this external webpage there are loads of comparisons of vector graphics editors., including a list of free and commercial ones. It would be great if someone would spend their time adding them to the Wikipedia tables in this article. — Wackymacs 06:44, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Xfig

Xfig is an important open source editor that is not listed.

Shouldn't Xfig be here also?

Of course it should be! Xfig is the great-grand-daddy of vector graphics editors, and the current version is very featureful.

[edit] Microsoft Expression

Microsoft has released a beta of their upcoming Microsoft Expression Graphic Designer. This product substantially expands on the feature set of Illustrator and will likely become a significant contender.

[edit] Sodipodi & OpenDraw?

Sodipodi & OpenDraw are mentioned in the Vector Graphics article. Is there a reason they aren't included here? (Sodipodi at all, and OpenDraw in the tables)? Irrevenant 03:19, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Sodipodi has nothing that Inkscape does not have, it's like a small and obsolete subset of Inkscape. Besides there's no active development on Sodipodi for a long time. Use Inkscape instead. Trapolator 01:31, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] ACD Canvas

I like Canvas as a vector editor. Supports Mac and PC, been around a long long time. 24.225.51.32 (talk) 22:29, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Price comparisons not like-to-like

It's actually impossible to make them like-to-like, too. For example, the CorelDraw Graphics Suite listed here at $399 includes Photopaint too, while Adobe Illustrator listed here at $499 does not include Photoshop. But the more strictly equivalent Adobe product (Creative Suite Standard, $899) then includes the layout program InDesign, which Corel don't currently compete with...

I'm not sure there's a good solution to this, except maybe to note which prices are standalone and which are not. Haeleth 12:11, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Sotfware Problems

I've added a lot about problems I've experienced as a serious user (mostly of Illustrator), which I consider to be more important than 'features'.

Ideally I would create files in simple applications and then edit them in more complex ones if the need arose, but the problems I've outlined frustrate this.

Some may feel that what I added should be on the talk page only, but I think it is important to present it to a wide audience. A comparison of what is compatible with what (and what the bugs are) seems difficult, and I'd like to see additions in that respect. It may be that I am missing something, in which case I'm probably not the only one, so I also welcome solutions! --Lindosland 15:25, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Sorry I removed that section. It's not encyclopedic. Wikipedia is not the place to lament about the quality of software or seek help with it. It's not a place for original research, questions, or hypotheses. If you have a reference about the low level of interoperability in vector software (such as a study or a quotation by someone notable), please add a brief mention of it, but to Vector graphics editor, not here. If you have specific and verifiable data on the support of variouus formats in vector editors, add it to the tables in this article. Trapolator 23:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

That doesn't seem very sensible; the subject is "Comparison of Vector Graphics editors" - surely that includes bad points as well as good? Irrevenant 02:40, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

I know this information is not encyclopedic, but I thought someone might find it useful in this talk page. Sketsa images can't be uploaded to the wiki projects. And Inkscape's text functions cannot be displayed by the wikiprojects. From my experience only Xpanzion 00:53, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Please correct/standardise the maximum zoom levels!

Hi, it seems to me the maximum zoom levels in the article are way too messed up.

Some people put in 25600x (which means 2560000%) when they mean 256 times. I checked this with Inkscape and corrected it (to 256x). I don't think the other programs' zoom levels are correct either (2500, 450000, 25600, 12800), but since I don't have those programs, I can't make an objective statement. So can anyone who owns the other software correct this?

I think it will help a lot if we'd decide to state in the maximum zoom factor to make it clear it's not the maximum zoom percentage. As it is now, "maximum zoom" could mean anything...

Greets, A. Rad 09:11, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

• why is max zoom a useful metric here? I don't think I've ever used it in my use of sodipodi, inkscape, OOo-draw or XaraLX (the apps I've used to actually do work in). Presumably if you've got a 10px object and zoom fully you could still have it look bigger by expanding the object to 100px, 1000px or whatever? : Pbhj 15:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multilingual Support ?

I'd like to see a section on multi-lingual support added - particularly support for complex scripts - as this is a feature very significant to users of those scripts. I only have access to CorelDraw, Freehand, Illustrator (non-ME version), Inkscape, and OOorg Draw. Would anyone with access to other vector graphics programs be interested in checking out the multi-lingual support in those applications? Chris Fynn 12:42, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Lineform

What about Freeverse's "Lineform"? http://www.freeverse.com/games/game/?id=6020 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.238.92.179 (talk) 03:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The term "steeper learning curve" can mean opposite things

"Adobe Illustrator has a steeper learning curve" What does that mean, is it steeper as more difficult to climb, or steeper as gaining altitude more quickly. I looked up Learning_curve to get some help, but basically only got the answere that Yes, it can mean different things. I surgest changing it to faster/slower learning curve which ever is approriate. Otherwise thank you for a helpfull article /Magnus Andersson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.253.237.178 (talk) 13:41, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's not forget about Skencil! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.223.252.250 (talk) 02:14, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fireworks

Shouldn't Adobe's Fireworks be in this article?