(Click to Enlarge)
Windows only 
Have you ever wanted to create beautiful vector graphics, but don’t have the budget for Adobe Illustrator? Maybe what you need is Creative Docs .NET? Not only is it completely free, but it also has a large number of features that give the competition a run for their money. For starters checkout the sample gallery of things they created using Creative Docs .NET.
Creative Docs .NET can be used for a variety of purposes including manuals, posters, illustrations, flow charts, brochures, and much more. Now I have to say that the interface is not like some of the other graphic editors out there, so there is a slight learning curve. After only about 5-minutes of tinkering around with the application though I was able to produce the graphic in the screenshot above. It’s nothing fancy, and if I actually knew my way around the program it would have taken me no time at all to do that. And, of course, with a little imagination you could come up with some pretty amazing things.
The application has a wide range of features that I’m sure you’ll find useful, and with a little luck it might not take you too long to become acquainted with the features. This is hands down the most powerful vector graphics editor that I’ve ever come across, and I’m sure many of you will take advantage of this free software.
I wonder how this compares to Inkscape.
Is this made by the people who made Paint.NET?
Does it let you save as SVG?
I noticed that the program cannot handle a large number of fonts in the Windows Font folder. It kept crashing on startup until I moved out a large number of fonts. I can finally try it now.
I wonder how this compares to Xara Xtreme which is free for GNU/Linux users? Ubuntu users have access to it in the repositories
Nope, different company. Microsoft actually owns Paint.NET. I was wondering the same thing at first.
Huh… you might want to submit that as a bug.
I can’t really say since I haven’t used Xara Xtreme before, sorry.
Handy, fast and quite easy to learn. Nice to have pointed it out!
Wow, apparently you can even make awesome icons with this program!
[creativedocs.net]
No they don’t. From their website: “Paint.NET is a trademark of Rick Brewster.”
From their license agreement:
“Creative Docs .NET is not freeware. You may, however, share this 2.x version freely with others, as long as you accept the terms below.”
Huh? That’s confusing…
Ahh, guess I was wrong. I looked it up and it appears Microsoft just lends a hand with it.
Wonder what the heck that means. I guess if you give it to yourself then all is good. Just send yourself an email with a link to the file. That would be like sharing it with yourself.
Hi, I am one of the two authors working on our spare time on this project. We are not at all related to Microsoft. In fact, Creative Docs .NET is owned and distributed by a tiny Swiss ISV.
Please let me know (bugs at creativedocs.net) if you find any issues. The font problem is known but I have currently no workaround for it. And the lack of documentation is also one of our top issues. There is some French documentation, which we will try to translate this Summer. You can have a look at it on [epsitec.ch] (”Manuel d’exemples” and “Manuel complet”) which might give you some hints as how some tools work.
And a few words about the licence: you may freely use and redistribute the binaries, code and examples, as long as you don’t charge anything for it. You may not resell Creative Docs .NET, for instance. And you may not (yet) modify it. But you can do what you want with the artwork that you create with the software. There are no special restrictions, even if you produce commercial illustrations.
Pierre
Installed nicely but crashed on launch every time.
Based on comments above and some testing, there seems to be a 150 font threshold. Anything over that crowbars the application which (for a graphic app) is unacceptable.
On well
Check my Font file 851 in folder! Guess i have to wait, i know from the comments that it wont work for me