What is Karbon?
Karbon is a feature-rich vector graphics and illustration application designed for the Linux operating system. Developed by the KDE community and released under an open source license, it is free to download and use.
The software focuses on enabling users to produce 2D graphics, illustrations, drawings, diagrams, and typography. Its versatile toolkit allows both novice and professional designers and artists to bring creative visions to life with ease.
Key features include multiple fill, stroke, blend modes, and shape tools including lines, curves, rectangles, ellipses, stars, spirals, and arcs. Karbon supports advanced path operations like boolean, offset, trim, slice, and more. Documents can integrate raster images and color management is built-in.
Files are saved in SVG format by default, maintaining high resolution on zoom and maximal editing flexibility. Many other popular formats like PDF, PS, EPS, AI, WMF, EMF, PNG, and JPEG are supported for import and export as well.
Karbon represents an excellent free and open source option for vector drawing and illustration on Linux desktops and laptops. Its deep feature set caters to illustrators at all skill levels interested in an alternative to proprietary commercial packages.
Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, CorelDRAW Graphics Suite, Adobe Fireworks, Linearity Curve, Pencil2D, SVG-Edit, Serif Drawplus, Adobe FreeHand, Sketsa SVG Editor, Boxy SVG, sK1, Aphalina Designer, YouiDraw, Zoner Draw, SVGViewer, Cenon, IDesign, Creative Docs .Net, GLIPS Graffiti Editor, Mayura Draw, Lineform, VectorDesigner, PageFocus Draw, Skencil are some alternatives to Karbon.