Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Wot - no SVG?

I've recently started using SmartDraw for some architectural diagrams in my current project. It's a nice piece of software - intuitive, simpler than Visio, and with a huge and useful library of templates. But why won't it export scalable vector graphics (svg)?

I do most of my graphics in SVG these days. Because it's an XML language I can easily transform it or generate it from other XML documents. Because SmartDraw won't import or export SVG, it's hard to merge SmartDraw diagrams with documents that I've created previously. It's a surprising limitation in what is otherwise an excellent, if commercial, program.

In my copious free time I'm planning to take a look at an alternative called Inkscape. I've heard good things about it. It uses SVG, and it's open source.

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