[Ben Bob2]

Hello,
I'm wondering what software anyone uses to draw diagrams for media like papers and presentations. I would use it for is drawing items like flow charts, apparatus, material microstructures etc.

Currently I can draw the basics with Microsoft Paint and ChemDraw and Word templates, but as I am becoming more active in presenting and writing, I would like something a step up (but still free/cheap )

Thanks for any leads.

[Corribus]

Far and away Adobe Illustrator is the best there is for making figures and diagrams (for technical data plotting I use OriginPro, but for all other diagrams and conceptual drawings I use illustrator, especially for presentations). It took me quite a while to really know what I was doing, but being able to make professional looking diagrams and figures is worth the time investment. It's an invaluable skill to know how to use a program like this. At work and at home my skills are in high demand by colleagues and wife.

The price tag of Illustrator does turn a lot of people off. Thankfully, there is an almost equally good freeware vector drawing program called Inkscape. Actually I learned how to do vector drawing on Inkscape first, and then was forced to move to Adobe because my work IT department won't install Inkscape (even though it would save them money). All things equal I think Inkscape is actually easier to use but some of the proprietary image file types cannot be saved to. I still use Inkscape at home because it's free and I'm too cheap to pay for Illustrator when Inkscape does basically the same thing.

Anyway, Inkscape is a free download here:
https://inkscape.org/en/

There are plenty of tutorials around the net. Ditto for Adobe Illustrator if you decide to go that route.

[curiouscat]

There's a whole ecosystem of excellent quality free stuff in this domain:

I'll add: Inkscape  for illustration. Gimp for photo editing. Blender for video / 3D. Povray for realistic rendering of images.

 

[Borek]

And let's not forget about things like ChemDraw or ChemSketch for drawing molecules.

[curiouscat]

And let's not forget about things like ChemDraw or ChemSketch for drawing molecules.

True.

As an aside though, I often find myself just write out the SMILES string (which is much faster than  a GUI once you know what you are doing) and then get it quickly rendered via Chemforum's interface and just to copy and paste the resulting image.

[curiouscat]

Far and away Adobe Illustrator is the best there is for making figures and diagrams (for technical data plotting I use OriginPro, but for all other diagrams and conceptual drawings I use illustrator, especially for presentations). It took me quite a while to really know what I was doing, but being able to make professional looking diagrams and figures is worth the time investment. It's an invaluable skill to know how to use a program like this.

Powerpoint is somewhat underrated but if one knows how to use it judiciously it is a great tool for generating graphics of quite a high quality.

I know it has a bad rep but it really has helped me generate a lot of fairly decent illustrations.

[Ben Bob2]

Thank you all for your input! Hmmm, maybe I can justify purchasing Illustrator with my grant allowance; I'll look into it or just use Inkscape.

And let's not forget about things like ChemDraw or ChemSketch for drawing molecules.

Yup, I got ChemDraw for free through my school and now use it for most of my reaction schemes and other structures. The glassware templates are also nice. 

[Corribus]

The biggest thing I've found that Inkscape won't do that Illustrator will is support (I.e., export images as) proprietary graphics formats like .jpg and .tif. You can only export as .png. This is surmountable by using Paint, but it's an extra step, and you might lose of the resolution options you'd get just by using Illustrator directly. I haven't found this to be a serious impediment, though. Illustrator does have some more advanced options (I think the 3D perspective capability is better in Illustrator), but on the flip side, Inkscape has a more intuitive graphical interface. Having used both extensively, I still think Inkscape is easier to use... even if Illustrator might be more powerful for really detailed work (of which I do very little). Inkscape also loads much faster. In short, if you were making a career of graphics design, Illustrator would probably be worth the investment (especially because you would probably buy the entire Adobe Creative Suite). For the level of what I need, Inkscape is more than sufficient. I wouldn't have ever bought Illustrator if my employer would have let me install it on my work PC. Universities may not have that problem.

My recommendation would be to download Inkscape and learn how to use it. If it sings to you and you really feel the need for the upgrade, splurge for Illustrator. The skills you master in Inkscape are largely transferrable; it'd just be a matter of learning where the buttons are at that point.