Aaaargh.

[compilerbitch]

And, I repeat, Aaaargh.

A few days ago, I thought I'd found a wonderful, pro quality open source vector graphics editor for Linux, namely Inkscape, that would solve all my technical illustration problems.

Boy, was I wrong. Its GUI is pretty good, with some very nice features. Unfortunately, however, its .eps export functionality is completely stuffed. Which means, I just spent several days doing about 30 or 40 illustrations, only to find that when saving them out in a format that can be used by LaTeX, the output is just basically broken. It won't display in ghostview, and actually manages to crash the laser printer in the lab. Aaaargh. Aaaargh. Aaaargh. Aaaargh. Aaaargh.

Now I need to figure out how I am going to come up with a way to redo all of those illustrations without access to any decent line art software. I am *not* doing it in sodding xfig.

Typically enough, my paper deadline is looming fast. Bugger, bugger, bugger.

Does anyone know of an alternative, reliable, line art package for Linux (in the Adobe Illustrator/Corel Xara mould, I don't have time for the likes of metapost)? Or do I need to go commercial, boot Windoze and install something expensively commercial?

Comments

[naranek.livejournal.com]

*fx: irritatingly* Y'know, if you'd mentioned you were using inkscape, I'd've told you that, because I did the same thing about six months ago! :-)

The best line-art software I've seen so far (and the only one I use in anger) is Corel Xara (http://www.xara.com/) - it works under Windows on VMWare, if you can be arsed setting VMWare up.

OpenOffice Draw isn't all that bad, but I'm not stunningly impressed by it.

[doseybat.livejournal.com]

why dont i pop down to kingsdown and get you plaptop? its no trouble and you can have your old stuff tonight.

[xraycb.livejournal.com]

Inkscape would seem to have WMF and SVG export. Surely something (libwmf-bin, ksvg, mozilla with SVG plugin, sodipodi, sketch, CorelXara, Illustrator) can convert one or the other to PS correctly?

[poult.livejournal.com]

Sodipodi is meant to be quite good.
I think it does EPS export fairly well...

[fanf]

I use pic but perhaps that's too masochistic for you :-)

two probably not very helpful comments

[fatdog.livejournal.com]

If its open source, how easy would it be to fix the eps output? This is not, I suppose, a short term solution.

Also, I like pstricks for doing my LaTeX illustrations.

Third time lucky..

[toothycat]

I'm unconvinced of reliability, but Paint Shop Pro works under Wine* - I've used it (when cut off from my Windows computer). You can get free tryouts and PSP7, the copy I have, has nice vector functionality. I've not plumbed the limits of Adobe Illustrator, which is very fun indeed, but either would do what I've used them for (making work diagrams, basically). You're probably better off with a proper Linux thingy, though. If you're really stuck, come over ours some time and we can probably work something out ;)

* Once you work out to avoid the 'create new vector layer' command because that crashes the program - do it by simply drawing vector onto a raster layer and it'll happily make you a new vector layer.

[puppygalore.livejournal.com]

You could try dia, which will do for quite primitive block-and-arrow diagrams, or more complicated flowcharty things, but it's not very artistic.

There's also sketch, which I try occasionally, and then give up on because it doesn't provide some feature or other... I can't remember what it doesn't do off the top of my head though!

[sjmurdoch.livejournal.com]

The Open Source applications I know of which seem to vaguely meet your requirements are xfig (weird UI, basic, but works) dia (normal UI, basic, sometimes breaks) and sodipodi (haven't used). For Windows I would suggest Visio, which you can get from the lab under MSDNAA - ask Graham Titmus if you don't have an account.

[sjmurdoch.livejournal.com]

I am now looking round for a good drawing package. You were right about Visio - the EPS export is awful. I'm staying away from Inkscape, since I need to put it in LaTeX too. I had another look at Dia and Sodipodi, but they are still too basic - sure I could edit the SVG files to make it do what I want, but if I wanted to write code I would rather use MetaPOST rather than XML. It looks I'll just stick with xfig - it sucks, but I think less so than anything else I have tried.

[strepetaa.livejournal.com]

What exactly is broken in your EPS? Have you filed a bug at the Inkscape site?

I know of three limitations:

- no gradients (PS level 2 limitation)

- no transparency (PS limitation, even in level 3)

- text is broken into separate characters (OK so long as you don't want to edit the result, which you don't, judging by your use case)

Everything else works fine for me. If anything is broken for you, complain to Inkscape devs. They do listen.