Ipe (software)

The Ipe extensible drawing editor is a free vector graphics editor for drawing vector graphics in PDF or EPS format. Particularly suitable is the program to create illustrations for inclusion in LaTeX documents. Multi-page PDF presentations with transition effects can be easily created.

Ipe was developed by Otfried Cheong in 1993 and initially ran only on SGI workstations. Ipe 6 was published in 2003. In this case, the file format in XML has been changed, which can also be embedded in the resulting PDF and EPS files. Ipe 7 appeared in 2009.

Ipe has the following features:

• Entering text as LaTeX source code. This can be very simple input mathematical expressions, and LaTeX macros of the main document can be used directly.
• Generates native PostScript and / or PDF, including the text. Ipe converts the LaTeX text using pdfTeX in PDF or Postscript when the file is saved.
• SVG and PNG files can be created.
• It can polylines, arcs, splines, and text objects generated are grouped and processed.
• Transparency, gradients, custom line ends ( eg arrows) and hatches are supported, but must be entered by hand in the style sheet.
• Different object fishing opportunities ( corner, edge, intersection, grids ), it is easy to construct geometrically.
• It is a plug-in interface that can be added via the so-called ipelets by arbitrary functions to Ipe. This can be written in C or ( since version 7) in Lua.
• Ipe supports layers and multi-page documents.
• Presentations can be provided by defining views with transition effects (such as fade in).
• Bitmap images can be pasted from the clipboard or importing JPEG or BMP files.
• Existing PDF and SVG files can be converted to an auxiliary program in the IPE format.
• By style templates consistent formatting can be ensured.
• In Ipe 7 was integrated Lua as a scripting language in the system.