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

[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.

[compilerbitch.livejournal.com]

Adobe Illustrator, I hate to say it, is wonderful. I've not seen anything to touch it frankly, so I suspect that it will be my no.1 vector graphics package from now on. It is to vector what Photoshop is to raster, which is to say, extremely good though rather expensive.

[sjmurdoch.livejournal.com]

Illustrator is installed on Waterloo, so I had a quick try at it. It looks good but the UI will take a little while to learn and I only have 7 days to write this paper (currently I have an almost empty LaTeX file and a list of related work). Perhaps I can get Stephen Lewis to do the diagrams for this one, since I think he can use Illustrator.