I've used it for figures, posters, etc for many years. For the most part, no one cares too much about what you use, more about the final figure. If you're wor

I've used it for figures, posters, etc for many years. For the most part, no one cares too much about what you use, more about the final figure. If you're working so closely with someone that you're sharing raw files (e.g. they're using illustrator and want you to share a .ai file), you're going to hit issues, certainly. However, most work will focus on the end result -- i.e. a paper with static exported figures. At any rate, there's nothing wrong with the proprietary tools either -- they're great. It's just a matter of what you can get access to and what's best for the use case at hand. If it helps to have some examples, pretty much every figure in my dissertation was made with a combination of matplotlib, QGIS, and Inkscape: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/YHJWFVKMNVZGN8S http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/YHJWFVKMNVZGN8S E.g. see fig 2.12 for a cartoon made purely in Inkscape and things like fig 2.4 or 2.6 are a combination of matplotlib and Inkscape.