What I Love and Hate About Inkscape

Every since I discovered it two years ago, Inkscape has become an indispensable part of my graphic design toolbox. Not that I'm any pro, mind you; graphic design is just something I do on the side, e.g., the occasional signage for our family business, or for when I'm fiddling around with web templates. Having grown up on Corel Draw, I can say unequivocally that Inkscape does it many, many times better. Inkscape gets more use from me than does GIMP, but then again, I'm more of a vector guy than pixel painter.

Then again, there are the minor annoyances, too.

What I like about Inkscape:

1. Resize and rescale text: Perfect for making signs and logos.


2. Near-perfect measurement: If it says 20cm on Inkscape, it comes out 20cm (at 72dpi).


3. Intuitive operations: Inkscape is very easy to learn.


4. Keyboard shortcuts for everything: I don't have to go looking for any icons for my oft-used functions.


5. Works great with my printers when printing out portrait documents.

And the stuff I don't like:

1. On my laptop, the Inkscape window won't maximize. This is a known bug. To get around it, I have to detach one of the toolbars.


2. Won't print out landscape documents properly. This may be a problem with my printer driver, though. Still, it's an annoyance. I have to save the document as PNG and print it using Evince.


3. No integrated animation features...yet. Animation would just make Inkscape rock. In the meantime, though, we have to content ourselves with addons.