Talk:Comparison of vector graphics editors

Google
Sketchup doesn't belong in this list. It's a 3D program, not a vector graphics one. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.5.232.14 (talk) 21:42, 9 March 2011 (UTC)

Have to agree here. SketchUp may be able to export to PDF and print line drawings, but it is NOT a vector graphics editor any more than most 3D and CAD programs. At the very least, one would expect a vector graphics editor to include traditional support for strokes and fills (both of which are handled in a completely different way in SketchUp), accurate color control (SketchUp mixes colors with it's basic light source), curves (SketchUp only offers polygonal modeling, and therefore all lines are straight and "curves" are made up of segments), import and export of common vector formats (SkethUp only offers basic rendered output to PDF and transfer of common CAD and 3D formats). Also referring to it's max 3D dimensions as a page size and some arbitrary number for 3D camera control as a 2D zoom is ridiculous.

If anything, Layout (which only comes with the ~$500 Pro version of SketchUp) could be considered a vector graphics program, but only as much so as the layout mode of AutoCAD. It offers stroke and fill control, curves, page layouts, and exports to PDF (yet not much else, and good luck getting an SVG or AI file into it), but since it's more of a supporting mode for SketchUp and not very useful of accessible on it's own, probably should not be here either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.178.138.55 (talk) 12:46, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

✅ Removed. Nikk ca (talk) 15:34, 25 July 2023 (UTC)

Question about table links
In the general table, the names Corel and Adobe have a link while OpenOffice and Inkscape Team doesn't have a link. There is however a good community website for both of those projects. When checking the source code from the general table for updating some information. I see that there is no link where the names adobe and Corel are, how does this works? Thelennonorth (talk) 14:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, those are wikilinks. When you click Adobe or Corel in the table, you'll open their pages on Wikipedia that discuss both companies. Wikilinks are created by putting double square brackets ( and  ) around a term that has a page on Wikipedia. For more info check Tutorial (Wikipedia links) and Help:Link. — A. Rad (talk) 07:32, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

= Article aim and impartiality =

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)

The use of partial for inkscape is biased and inconsistent. Many of the other vector applications (including industry standard applications) have incomplete support for eps yet are designated by a green boxed yes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.53.94.158 (talk) 00:41, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

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'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)
 * 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)
 * This article is about comparisons. The term "industry standard" has been questionably defined here. At any rate, it's more relevant in an article about Illustrator. I'd rather see present comparisons without "who's first" statements. Why not suggest more points of comparison for tables? Surely that's the best way to argue quality? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.200.196 (talk) 17:45, 18 June 2008 (UTC)
 * The term "industry standard" is completely inappropriate for a product. If Adobe Illustrator has the biggest market share in some segment of the market, that may possibly be worth mentioning, if it can be supported by a citation to objective data. But that doesn't make it a "standard". Is Coca-Cola the "industry standard" soft drink?  Barbacana (talk) 15:37, 6 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I think marking open source software with a green "yes" and closed source with a red "no" also violates NPOV. Doing it this way makes it look like a feature, as most of the other things that have that are.  I am going to remove the color for now.   Asmeurer  ( talk   ♬  contribs ) 03:15, 13 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Open source is a feature, because it facilitates modifications that would otherwise be impossible. Cburke91 (talk) 06:24, 17 March 2012 (UTC)


 * I ended up just deleting the whole column and making notes on the free ones. The column was redundant anyway, considering the license column.   Asmeurer  ( talk   ♬  contribs ) 03:46, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

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)

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)

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. &mdash;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)

= Basic features =

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)

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)
 * I think that conflating GNU/Linux and Unix-derived environments into "Unix" was such a bad move that it should be fixed. GNU/Linux and Unix-derived systems are different - they have completely different code bases, are maintained by different people, and have almost nothing in common except at the user-interface level. I seriously doubt whether all the editors which the article says run on "Unix" have actually been built and run on both GNU/Linux and (say) Solaris. Barbacana (talk) 15:49, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Re Operating Systems that different editors can run on: Adobe Illustrator can't be installed on a case sensitive file system, and so won't run on some Mac OS X Newlevant (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)Newlevant

Corel Paint Shop Pro XI
PSP supports vector based editing, should it be added?

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)

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.

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)

SmartDraw - missing

 * SmartDraw is a vector graphics production environment, competing with the Visio, is missing.  --dond (talk) 17:54, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

Visio - missing

 * MS Visio is a vector graphics production environment, is missing.  --dond (talk) 17:54, 10 September 2015 (UTC)

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)

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.

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.

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)

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)

Karbon14
I came looking for a comparison with Karbon14, an application associated with the KOffice suite. Could this be included? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.200.196 (talk) 17:28, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Google Drive/Docs Drawing
Needs to be included in the list. Creates standalone drawings but also can be embedded in Google presentation/slide, Google docs. Similar capabilities to the basic drawing editors in Powerpoint, Libre/OO presentations 193.35.250.236 (talk) 10:42, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

OmniGraffle
Exclusive to Mac OS X and similar to Visio, should be included in comparison. SVG capabilities of each editor/package should be included as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dancolestock (talk • contribs) 16:47, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Arts & Letters
I am surprised that no one has mentioned Arts & Letters, a vector graphics that has been around since the early '90's. I started using it when it first came out and still use it today. Version 7 is the latest official release, with version 8 in the works (I'm still a beta tester for the company). During the nineties, I was a computer support tech for a large international company, and was charged with deciding what vector graphics program the company would use. The contenders were CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, and Arts & Letters. Illustrator was a joke at the time, and I thought CorelDraw had a much steeper learning curve. So Arts & Letters became our "standard", although some non-conformers continued to use CorelDraw since that was what they had started with.

Over the years, I have used CorelDraw, Illustrator, Arts & Letters, and several other freeware vector programs. It is my opinion that Arts & Letters still has the shortest learning curve, and I especially like the ease of creating curves with it versus any of the other programs. Although a lot of the work I do now as a graphics artist requires me to use Illustrator, I actually do much of the work in Arts & Letters and then import it into Illustrator to present the final product. Arts & Letters may not have all the bells and whistles of the "industry leaders", and it certainly has it's own glitches, but I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to get started with vector graphics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.54.137.32 (talk) 14:06, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Gravit Designer
This page is really stale - it needs some serious attention to updating the tables of features. A new generation of tools like Gravit Designer has changed the landscape. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 52.119.118.14 (talk) 02:47, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

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)


 * Another oddity with price comparisons: I expected that clicking on the little triangle next to the word "cost" would sort by cost. In particular, I expected the "no cost" editors to be sorted either at one end of the table or the other. Instead, I see that the "no cost" editors are sorted (unexpectedly) towards the middle of the table. How do I fix this? --DavidCary (talk) 22:26, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

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)

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)

I do not even understand why this table needs physical measures? it is a Vector graphics editor comparison. convert this to maximum nodes on x and y axis. Why the hack put that zoom and "paint area" into the "basic features"? Basic features are if i can draw a line, rectangle triangle and circles with it... and if i can paint them. And then if i can add and substract these.... --occasionaly wikipedia user — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.161.17.22 (talk) 14:29, 30 March 2016 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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


 * i wonder 79.173.234.122 (talk) 01:04, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

yes it should - after all, it is a vector graphics editor if you always save in Fireworks' own PNG format. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.12.20.156 (talk) 08:22, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

CONVERSION ISSUES
Let me start off by saying that I am NOT a designer or a programmer. I am an ordinary user who has bothered to learn a little of the technical stuff behind what I do, but that is all. I upload images from the US Army Institute of Heraldry that are in JPEG format, and I added Adobe Photoshop Elements to my system to meet your original requirement of uploading only in PNG format.

I chose Adobe Photoshop Elements because it is cheap in price, simple to use, and lets me optimize images for web storage and quality (It supports both 8-Bit and 24-Bit PNG) before the program makes the conversion. Now, it seems that you also want me to add another program to convert from PNG to SVG, since Elements doesn't do that conversion.

The problem is that I looked at your list of programs, and none of them seem to be able to import JPEG directly for conversion - they all seem to be designed for designers, and that is not me.

If you want me to upload in SVG, then I need a program that will let me import from JPEG and its companion formats, and then will let me preview and adjust the settings, and then perform the conversion on one step.

Otherwise, I will continue to upload in PNG. SSG Cornelius Seon (Retired) (talk) 08:37, 8 December 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no need to perform conversion from JPEG to SVG in the first place. Such a conversion will increase file size without any gains. Just leave the images in JPEG. Furthermore, JPEG images are not appropriate candidates for conversion to SVG, as they lack the required fidelity for conversion to vector format. In future, the best place for such comments is on Village pump (technical), rather than on an article talk page. Thanks. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:49, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Visio creator
Microsoft has acquired Visio Corporation (formerly Shapeware), but I was wondering if it's technically correct to state that the creator of Microsoft Visio is Shapeware, rather than Microsoft? Axfangli (talk) 12:53, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Paint.net
Why isn't Paint.net here? Dogru144 (talk) 22:26, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Paint .net
Where is paint.net????? 124.43.107.45 (talk) 11:39, 7 August 2010 (UTC)rishikeshan


 * why is paint.net not here? Because it isn't a vector editing program. It is a raster editing program, like Photoshop. Maeric9 (talk) 21:09, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

A possible reference for editing this article
I just find this webpage that may be of interest for further improving the article. Wo.luren (talk) 15:56, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Order
I don't seem to see any order to the way the programs are listed, it should most likely be in alphabetic order as right now it just jumps all over the place with no discernible logic. Aausterm (talk) 20:48, 9 September 2016 (UTC)

Where is Figma?
Where is Figma? -- Rino ap Codkelden (talk) 11:55, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Libreoffice draw not in first table
In Text and other tables it is in view.

Affinity Designer is already on Version 2.2.1
The entry in the table is very old! Can someone update this please? 2003:F1:1730:7693:DC23:1A23:83FD:8958 (talk) 00:41, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

Obsolete Products
Use of Adobe Flash has been discouraged due to security flaws and Adobe discontinued support. Adobe XD (Figma competitor) was declared end of life by Adobe when they were trying to acquire Figma. 52.119.115.152 (talk) 15:48, 8 February 2024 (UTC)