Top OpenOffice Draw Alternatives and Overview

Whether you want to draw sketches, flowcharts, or simple or complex shapes, any drawing software is an essential tool for any artist, illustrator, or designer. Your artistic skills matter, but so does the drawing equipment. Just how in analog drawing you need the right kind of canvas, brushes, pencils, watercolors, oils, charcoal, etc., for digital illustration, it is the choice of some robust software. Apache OpenOffice Draw comes as a handy tool for all such drawings. You can create diagrams or draw complex business processes quickly from anywhere without having to pay a penny for a license.

A quick and free way to draw

Anything from a quick sketch to an elaborate plan can be easily drawn with the tools that OpenOffice Draw supplies you with, making it a robust tool for general as well as technical posters. A maximum page size of 300cm by 300cm can be attained, and you can communicate with graphics and diagrams within this vast space. The tools that you use most of the time can be quickly accessed with a single click when you ‘park’ them around your screen. At Styles and Formatting, you can keep all your preferred graphics styles and customize it as per your needs.

Arrange and manipulate objects on OpenOffice Draw

You can manipulate and rotate objects in two or three dimensions on Draw. It lets you create shapes and forms such as a sphere, ring, cube, etc. with the help of the 3D controller. You can arrange and group objects and edit them while being grouped. You can then ungroup or regroup them again. Because it also makes rooms for sophisticated rendering, you can create photorealistic outputs with the help of texture, lighting, transparency, perspective effects, etc. As the dimension lines calculate and display linear dimensions, you get an idea of the size of your diagrams while you are drawing.  

Easy imports and exports with multi-platform functionality

The Gallery can be used to add clipart in your diagram. You can also create your own clipart and add them to the Gallery. Files are saved in a predefined XML-based format of OpenDocument, an international standard for all office documents. Flash versions (.swf) can also be created. Plus, Draw supports multiple platforms like Linux, macOS, Windows, Solaris, among others. This compatibility lets you continue your drawings even if you change the operating system. For freelancers who prefer to work on a budget, they can work at the client’s site without any issues despite the interface change.

Company Name: The Apache Software Foundation

Founded in: 1999