LibreOffice Draw is a free and open source
vector graphics
Vector graphics is a form of computer graphics in which visual images are created directly from geometric shapes defined on a Cartesian plane, such as points, lines, curves and polygons. The associated mechanisms may include vector display a ...
editor. It is one of the applications included in the
LibreOffice
LibreOffice () is a free and open-source productivity software, office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation (TDF). It was fork (software development), forked in 2010 from OpenOffice.org, an open-sourced version of t ...
office suite, developed by
The Document Foundation
The Document Foundation (TDF) is a non-profit organization that promotes open-source document handling software. It was created by members of the OpenOffice.org community to manage and develop LibreOffice, a free and open-source office suite, an ...
.
LibreOffice Draw can be used to create complicated figures using shape tools, straight and curved tools, polygon tools, among other features.
Like the other components of LibreOffice, Draw can be run on
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
,
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
and
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
.
There are community builds for many other platforms. Ecosystem partner
Collabora
Collabora is a global private company headquartered in Cambridge, United Kingdom, with offices in Cambridge and Montreal. It provides open-source consultancy, training and products to companies.
Collabora's initial focus was instant messaging ...
uses LibreOffice upstream code and provides apps for
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
,
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
,
iPadOS
iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. for its iPad line of tablet computers. It is a rebranded variant of iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones, renamed to reflect the diverging features of the two product l ...
and
ChromeOS
ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfac ...
. LibreOffice Online is an online office suite which includes the applications Writer, Calc, Impress and Draw and provides an upstream for projects such as commercial
Collabora Online
Collabora Online is an open source online office suite that can be integrated with any web application, it is developed by Collabora Productivity, a division of Collabora. Collabora Online has LibreOffice at its core and allows for collaborative ...
.
LibreOffice Draw natively uses
Open Document Format for Office Applications (ODF) (
.odg graphics extension) which is an international standard file format established by the
(OASIS).
Features
Draw can be used to make flowcharts, technical drawings, brochures, posters, customized photos, photo galleries and albums.
Draw includes a spellchecker, autocorrect, thesaurus, hyphenation mode and color replacing. It has a gallery of shapes and drawings. It also supports as macro execution with Java, extensions and has configurable XML filter settings.
Import and export function
* Import, edit, export
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
s
* Import
Microsoft Visio
Microsoft Visio ( ) (formerly Microsoft Office Visio) is a diagramming and vector graphics application and is part of the Microsoft Office family. The product was first introduced in 1992, made by the Shapeware Corporation, later renamed Visio ...
.vsd files
*Import
Microsoft Publisher
Microsoft Publisher is a desktop publishing application from Microsoft, differing from Microsoft Word in that the emphasis is placed on page layout and graphic design rather than text composition and proofreading.
Overview
Publisher is includ ...
.pub files.
* Import from OTT,
STW
STW is an Australian television station owned by the Nine Network that is based in Perth, Western Australia.
''STW'' broadcasts from a shared facility transmitter mast located in Carmel. The station callsign, ''STW'', is an acronym of Swan Tele ...
, OTH, OTS,
STC, OTP,
STI, OTG, STD and VOR formats
* Export to
BMP,
EPS
EPS, EPs or Eps may refer to:
Commerce and finance
* Earnings per share
* Electronic Payment Services, in Hong Kong, Macau, and Shenzhen, China
* Express Payment System, in the Philippines
Education
* Edmonton Public Schools, in Edmonton, Al ...
,
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
,
JPEG
JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
,
PNG,
PSD PSD may refer to:
Educational bodies
* Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, a Pre-K to 12th grade school for Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, located in the Germantown section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
* Philippine School Doha, a Filipino schoo ...
,
SVG,
WMF, as well as create
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
,
XHTML
Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated.
While HTML, prior ...
,
PDF
Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...
and
SWF
SWF ( ) is an Adobe Flash file format used for multimedia, vector graphics and ActionScript.[Open Screen Pr ...](_blank)
files
Reception
In a 2014 review, Elena Opris wrote in
Softpedia
Softpedia is a software and tech news website based in Romania. It indexes, reviews and hosts various downloadable software and reports news on technology and science topics.
Website
Softpedia hosts reviews written by its staff—each review in ...
, "The Good: LibreOffice's best features are applicable in all modules. Draw sports numerous options and configuration parameters for defining each part of the graphical plan as well as for the general elements in the interface (such as toolbars and keyboard shortcuts). The styles and formatting presets simplify the entire layout designing process. The document recovery feature usually comes to the rescue when experiencing system crashes." Opris noted, "The Bad: The program often takes a while to paste pictures as well as to load some features. It froze several times during our evaluation when inserting files with unsupported formats, which eventually led us to restarting Draw."
Writing in December 2017 for ''It's FOSS'', Ankush Das, said, "LibreOffice Draw module is one of the best open source alternatives to Microsoft Visio. With the help of it, you can either choose to make a quick sketch of an idea or a complex professional floor plan for presentation. Flowcharts, organization charts, network diagrams, brochures, posters, and what not! All that without even requiring to spend a penny."
PAT Research described Draw in a 2018 review, "LibreOffice Draw is a powerful office and flowchart software that provides a clean interface and tools that enable users to unleash their creativity and enhance their productivity".
GoFree wrote, "it is simply amazing that a free vector graphics editor like this can deliver such professional results."
References
External links
{{Vector graphics editors
Free vector graphics editors
LibreOffice
Diagramming software