Inkscape is a free, open source vector graphics editor in the same vein as Adobe Illustrator and Xara Xtreme.

It is capable of a very broad set of features, and has a simple interface that can be learned in minutes. In the help menu, you’ll find a set of tutorials which are themselves Inkscape documents. These contain examples of the concepts taught embedded right into the help document itself, allowing you to try out something new you’ve learned in the same environment. The ‘effects’ menu holds a set of customizable plug-ins, and more can be easily downloaded and installed. This gives a third-party developer boost to Inkscape, because it now has a small community of plug-in writers making little improvements and adding impressive features to the editor. This works similar to the third-party developer community around the Gimp and Firefox. Inkscape can export to a wide variety of file formats, including image files, PDFs, Adobe Illustrator .IA, encapsulated postscript, LaTeX, and many others.