Inkscape: for technical drawing

Jon Cruz posted this:

"Of people I talked to who were not using Inkscape or not using as much as they could, the most common question seemed to be with technical drawing. We could probably pick up a good usability boost and garner another user segment if we just tune up things to make technical drawing and diagramming better. Most of what we need to do is probably already well known to us. However, we could benefit from a quick review and a little refocusing. I think one person's question really summed up the viewpoint we need to use when looking into this: "So, will Inkscape let me finally move off of Xfig now" The people we could help with that are probably using Xfig or Dia (or nothing yet) for simple charts, diagramming, home layout and the like. Perhaps focusing down on some casual use-cases like that will help us sight some low-laying fruit and get a jump up in this area."

http://codewideopen.blogspot.com/2009/01/linux-conf-au-one.html

Indeed, when I talk about Inkscape people often say "Oh, I'm not creative, I have no use for software like that". This puzzles me.

Sometimes this becomes a conversation about how Inkscape can also be used for technical drawing, diagrams, graphs and charts and how inkscape can be useful beyond its obvious use as a creative drawing tool. 

The Scalable Vector Graphic file format inkscape uses lends itself to dynamic content creation meaning you can use inkscape to generate graphic files such as png or pdf for reports or web content.

I agree with Jon completely - paying attention to the specific needs of these users might win us new devotees willing to help make the project even better!

Chad Files 2007 article  Use Inkscape and XSLT to Create Cross-Platform Reports and Forms published in Linux Journal is a good example.