Inkscape Manual

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About Inkscape
Inkscape is an open source drawing tool for creating and editing SVG graphics. More than just a text
vector editor, Inkscape provides a WYSIWYG interface for manipulation of vector images, allowing
the artist to express himself freely. While other free and proprietary software with similar capabilities
exists, Inkscape provides an interface to directly manipulate the underlying SVG code. This allows one to
be certain that the code complies to W3C standards. Since the beginning of its development, the Inkscape
project has been very active, providing stability for the current software and the capacity for future
growth.
Like other drawing programs, Inkscape offers creation of basic shapes (such as ellipses, rectangles, stars,
polygons, and spirals) as well as the ability to transform and manipulate these basic shapes by rotation,
stretching, and skewing.
Inkscape also allows users to manipulate objects precisely by adjusting node points and curves.
Advanced artists find these functions indispensable in drawing software to freely create what they
imagine.
A user can either manipulate the properties of objects individually and precisely through the XML editor
or, in a more general and intuitive fashion, with input devices such as mice, pen tablets, and even touch
screens.
In addition, Inkscape allows one to insert text and bitmaps (such as PNG—another W3C recommended
bitmap image format) into an image, as well as perform some basic editing functions on them. If an artist
requires further bitmap editing, he may use other tools (such as the GIMP) on images before or after
importing them . If one does edit a linked bitmap in another program, Inkscape will reflect these changes
once the SVG file is reloaded.
All of these characteristics make Inkscape a model drawing application, especially considering its
flexibility and many other capabilities. Its strict compliance with the W3C SVG standards allows
excellent portability of images to many applications and the varying platforms on which these
applications run.
About SVG
Those who work with graphics for internet use know the problems inherent to publishing images on the
web. Traditionally, the only options for use in internet documents were bitmap images (such as JPG or
GIF), with the disadvantage that these images are either too large for quick transfer or of poor quality due
to high compression.
As a solution to this problem, Macromedia created the Flash image format. While Flash satisfactorily
solved the main problems inherent to bitmap images, some users found it unacceptable that they
depended solely on Macromedia to develop the file format and software for the internet-standard vector
format. In order to address this discontent and provide an open option for vector graphics, the W3C
created the SVG file format, making a freely usable vector format available to everyone.
For most image files, only the specific software that renders the actual image can read them. SVG,
however, is described in XML and CSS, and its files can be opened and edited in any ASCII text editor.
Though one could create SVG images in this manner, it is highly unproductive and unintuitive. SVG
http://en.flossmanuals.net/Inkscape/print 3/29/2010
editors and renderers have the ability to easily open and manipulate SVG files without a special
interpreter.
Objectives of the SVG Format

The advantages of SVG are the same as for any vector image. They offer smooth, crisp, high-quality
images with the ability to resize to any dimensions without diminishing quality, all impossible with
bitmap images. The SVG standard also defines animation, and with a little use of Javascript, one can
make SVG interactive. Finally, since SVG is written in XML, a designer can create graphics based on
data stored in other XML-based formats, such as graphs, charts and maps. Despite its benefits, SVG lacks
a large choice in usable software that takes full advantage of its capabilities. For this reason, SVG is not
as usable, at the moment, as Flash.
The Current State of SVG Software

Today, a number of software applications, both free and proprietary, can create SVG files: Inkscape,
Sketch/Skencil, sK1, Karbon14, xfig, Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Xara, and any ASCII text editor.
Although not well supported by most web browsers, Mozilla (Firefox, Netscape) and other browsers such
as Safari and Konqueror currently support a basic subset of SVG, and Internet Explorer uses plugins (i.e.
Renesis) which support most of the SVG standard. Amaya has good support for SVG display, including
animations, and can also perform basic editing tasks.
The Batik toolkit is a very useful tool for SVG display, and is often used as a reference for checking SVG
implementations.
Inkscape Interface
The Inkscape interface is constituted of elements designed to make work simple, harmonious and
contextual. It is composed principally of a single window in which one creates and manipulates
drawings. Within the window, lie particular components which this chapter will identify, enabling
readers to easily navigate the software.
We may divide the window into nine major areas:
1. the Menu (at the top of the window)

2. the Commands Bar
3. the Snap Controls Bar
4. the Rulers, Guides and Grids
5. the Tool Controls Bar (also called just Controls Bar)
6. the Toolbox
7. the Canvas
8. the Color Palette
9. the Status Bar
The many toolbars that are available in Inkscape can take up a lot of visual space on your screen. To
reduce the toolbar size. Use File > Inkscape Preferences... then select the Interface option. Here you
can individually set the Commands Bar Icon Size, the Tool Controls Bar Icon Size and the Main toolbar
Icon Size.
The Menu
As in most GTK applications, the Inkscape Menu contains the essential functions of any program, those
which concern the application itself: New, Open, Save, Export, Quit, etc. The Menu also consists of
functions related to drawing.
The Commands Bar
The Commands Bar is located at the top of the workspace directly underneath the Menu. It contains
icons which are shortcuts to commands otherwise accessible from the menus or shortcut keys. It also
houses other controls for manipulating the document and drawing objects. For example, from the
Commands Bar one can open a new or existing document, print, import an image, undo previous
commands, zoom, open the dialog to adjust document properties, etc. Hovering the mouse cursor over
each icon will display its functions through tooltips.
There may be an arrow on the right side of the Commands Bar pointing down. Clicking this will reveal
any command shortcuts that unable to fit on the bar due to monitor size or resolution settings.
The Toolbox and Tool Controls Bar
The Toolbox, consisting of vertically aligned buttons located on the left of the window, is Inkscape's
main editing control. It contains the basic set of drawing utilities, particularly those for creating and
editing shapes. There are controls for geometric shapes as well as free-form shapes and lines, text, and
fills (colors and gradients).
Located directly under the Commands Bar is the Tool Controls Bar.
Selecting a tool in the Toolbox changes the Tool Controls Bar to show particular options associated with
that tool. Depending on context, some of these options affect a selected object while some take effect
only when drawing a new object; others can affect either existing or new objects.
The Canvas
The Canvas is the main workspace. It is the most central and important part of the interface since a user
creates and views drawings there. It occupies the middle of the window and is represented as a blank
"page" surrounded by open space. By default, rulers measuring pixels (the standard SVG unit) run above
and to the left of the Canvas, but one can adjust these defaults (ruler visibility and unit) in Document
Properties.
While the "page" defines the boundaries of a document intended for certain media (print, export, etc.), the
page boundaries do not limit the actual SVG image. In fact, users may make the page border and shadow
invisible in the Document Properties. Some artists prefer to use a particular page boundary and use the
white space as "scratch paper"; others prefer not to be limited by page boundaries.
Rulers
The Rulers are graduated lines placed on top and left of the canvas. The first is called "horizontal" and
the second "vertical". Graduations represent distances and are expressed in units that can be set in the
Units option of the Page tab of the File > Document Properties menu command.
When the mouse is over the canvas, two triangles appear in the rulers to show its X and Y coordinates,
relative to the page's bottom left corner. Those coordinates are also displayed in the Status Bar (at the
bottom of the document window) on the right, near the Zoom Control.
Note : In SVG, coordinates begin at the bottom left of the document like in Cartesian geometry.
Ctrl + R is a quick way to hide or display the Rulers. One can also do that with the
View>Show/Hide>Rulers menu command.
Guides
Guides are user-defined 'magnetic' lines. Using Guides makes object alignment easy even with the
mouse. To use Guides, click and drag from the Rulers to the point where the Guide is to be inserted and
release. Clicking and dragging from the horizontal Ruler produces a horizontal Guide. Clicking and
dragging from the vertical Ruler produces a vertical Guide.
How to use
Moving Guides
When the Selector Tool F1 is active, passing the mouse over a Guide will change its color to
red. Then, click and drag the Guide where you want.
Deleting guides
To delete a guide, just drag it to the appropriate Ruler with the Selector Tool F1
Guide Visibility
To make Guides invisible, without deleting them, select View > Guides from the Menu Bar.
The keyboard shortcut for toggling Guide visibility is Shift | (hold shift and press the pipe - |
- key, which is usually paired with the backslash key.)
File > Document properties lets you define if Guides should be displayed by default, and the
color of both the Guide itself and the highlight when the mouse is passing over.
Guides are also often used with snapping making it much easier to place objects on the
canvas, especially for precise or technical drawings. In this case just check the Snap guides
while dragging checkbox.
Grids
Instead of using lots of Guides, it can be useful to activate Grids. Do this with the View > Grid menu or
press # (Shift + 3 ).
Grids are of 2 types : rectangular and axonometric. They can be defined in the window from the File >
Document properties menu. Most commonly used is the rectangular Grid which is made of vertical and
horizontal lines.
Axonometric Grids allow the user to define any kind of angled Grid which can be interesting for
technical or architectural drawings.
Here is an example of a standard axonometric grid and a rectangular grid.
How to Use
Use the drop down list in the "Document Properties" dialog to select which type of grid to use then click
the "New" button. A new tab is created under "Defined grids" (several grids can be defined for a single
document). Then define the units you would like to use and both the Origin point and the distance
(Spacing) between two lines of the Grid. When using Axonometric Grids there is also the option to
define the angle of two grid lines.
Enabled
Tick the box to use this grid in the current document. Can be left 'on' in invisible grids to
maintain snap to grid controls.
Visible
Tick to display the grid on the canvas. Switch off to make the grid invisible. This option sets
the default value for each grid so that even if Visible is ticked here, it is still possible to
toggle View Grid on and off via the menu or by hitting the # key. If the View > Grid menu is
unchecked, the grid won't be visible on the canvas even if "Visible" is checked here.
Grid Units
Many commonly used units are available from mm, to feet and px. Choose the one that best
suits your needs. If no special needs, keep the default px.
Origin X and Y
Defines the beginning point of the Grid. Usually set to '0' (zero) it can be useful to change
these if an offset is needed, especially to define margins from the edge of the Canvas.
Spacing X and Y
Defines the space between two lines of the Grid. These spaces can be different for horizontal
and vertical lines so that the Grid pattern can be set to any kind of rectangle.
Angle X and Z
Only available for Axonometric Grids. Defines the the angles for the Grid Lines on the X
and Z axes.
Grid line color
The default color for the Grid is blue, but this can be changed here. There are two kinds of
line. The most often used is the Grid line, but when the grid spacing is short and many lines
are displayed the Major Grid line helps to evaluate distances. In this case a different color
can be defined for each type of line and the frequency of the Major Grid line can be set
(usually 5 or 10).
Show dots instead of lines
Available on Rectangular Grid Only. Since lines can overload the screen, it can be uneasy
working with Drawing Tools when the grid is visible. This option toggles between lines and
dots for displaying the grid, creating a less overloaded screen.
Snap Controls Bar
The Snap Controls Bar gives easy access to object snapping enabling you to quickly turn snapping on
when required and the off when finished. It also allows customisation of the snapping feature letting you
select what can be snapped and what objects can snap to.
Color Palette
The Color Palette is a quick way to apply color to shapes. It is displayed at the bottom of the Canvas, or
can be opened in a window by selecting View > Swatches ( Shift + Ctrl + W )
How to Use
To find the color you like, just scroll along the swatch line and choose. You can change the color palette
with another preset by clicking the triangle at the right of the bar and choosing one.
To apply a color to a shapes "Fill color", just click on a color after selecting one or more shapes.
To apply color to the "Stroke", press Shift while clicking and it's done.
Status Bar
Status Bar is the bottom-most area of the Inkscape interface. It includes (from left to right) :
Color indicator for the object

Quick layer selector
Help message area
Mouse Coordinate indicator
and finally a Zoom Factor in which one can write the exact zoom factor they want to use.
Working with files

Creating a New Document
Creating a new document is usually the first step to creating art in Inkscape. While you can always begin
with an existing document, it is likely that a blank document is more useful for a new drawing.
New documents, themselves, are created from an existing document (also known as a template) which
exists in the user's profile. A standard template file comes with a new installation, but a user can modify
it, just like any Inkscape file, to suit his or her preferences. In addition to the standard template, there is a
selection of other templates representing various media types; this list can be extended with additional
templates created by the user.
When Inkscape starts, a new document is automatically created from the standard template. If a new
document is created from an existing instance of Inkscape, a new Inkscape window is opened.
How to Use
One can create a new file in several ways:
Select File > New from the menu bar (opens a list of all available templates with Default at the top)
Press Ctrl + N (creates a new document from the default template)
Click the New Document icon on the Commands Bar (also creates a new document from the
default template)
To modify document properties (such as page size, default units, etc.), select File > Document Properties
from the menu or press Ctrl + Shift + D.
Opening a Document
Instead of creating a new file one may wish to open an existing SVG document. This process can be
useful for:
modifying an existing document;
getting some part of a document to reuse it for another one;
analyzing the method used to create a picture, especially by viewing the code in the Inkscape XML
source code editor;
exporting the document in a new format.
How to Use
There are a couple of methods for opening files:
Open... - Opens a file in a new window for editing, making any work carried out totally
independent from concurrently open documents.
Select File > Open from the menu
Press Ctrl + O
Click the Open icon on the Commands Bar
Import... - Imports a file into the currently active document you are working on. The imported file
becomes an object in the already open document.
Select File > Import...
Press Ctrl + I
Click the Import icon on the Commands Bar
It is possible to exchange objects from one document to another by copy/paste, but only if the newly
opened document was opened from within the original application instance. For example, if a file was
opened by double clicking its icon from the computer's file browser, a second instance of Inkscape would
be opened and objects could not be exchanged between documents.
While Inkscape can import several different file types, it only works with SVG files; therefore, every file
is translated to SVG upon import. This means that some data loss and change may occur upon import.
Saving a Document
There are several methods of saving files:
Save - saves the existing document using the current file name. If the document is new and has not
yet been saved, a dialog will open asking the user to specify a file name and location.
Select File > Save from the menu
Press Ctrl + S
Click the Save Document icon on the Commands Bar
Save as... - saves a new copy of the file under a different file name. The newly saved file
automatically becomes the working copy, so any further changes will be saved to the new file.
This can be useful for saving incremental versions of a file.
Select File > Save as... from the menu
Press Ctrl + Shift + S
Save a Copy... - saves an exact copy of the current SVG file under a different file name in
whatever location the user specifies. This copy is kept separate from the current working file, even
after the save. It can be saved over by selecting Save a Copy... again from the menu. This can also
be useful for saving incremental versions of a file.
Select File > Save a Copy... from the menu
Press Ctrl + Shift + Alt + S
Export Bitmap... - saves a bitmap rendering of the SVG file or some selection of objects on the
page. Currently only renders as PNG.
Select File > Export Bitmap... from the menu
Press Ctrl + Shift + E
Click the Export Bitmap icon on the Commands Bar
The File Save Dialog
Name
Specifies the new file name. Selecting "Append filename extension automatically" at the
bottom of the window, makes it unnecessary to type extensions manually.
Directory and File Panels
In the center part of the dialog, the left panel gives a quick access to standard directories and
bookmarked directories; the right panel lists the actual directory contents.
Type
Defines the file format for saving the file.
Inkscape SVG (the default file type) is a superset of the SVG specification which is used by
Inkscape as its native file format. Inkscape SVGs contain markup that define such features
as Path Effects which are not defined in the SVG spec but are still important to save in the
file. While many SVG applications will open Inkscape SVGs, the file may not render as
expected in those programs if non-SVG features were used in the file.
Plain SVG is the standard SVG without Inkscape-specific markup. Use Plain SVG for best
interoperability with other applications that may be used to open the file.
For more information about other file formats supported by Inkscape, see below.
Commonly Used File Formats
.svg
There are several versions of the SVG file format available to Inkscape:
Inkscape svg is Inkscapes default format which keeps every shape as easily
editable as possible.
Plain svg is the recommended SVG format for use outside Inkscape. It is fully
compliant with W3C's spec. In this format, many of the shapes (especially
primitives) will be transformed to paths.
Adobe Illustrator svg (Adobe Illustrator 9+) is the svg format exported from
Adobe Illustrator, with its specification. For those who have to work with
proprietary software users. Note: these files are labeled .ai.svg and Inkscape
is only able to open/import them.
.svgz (compressed)
Compressed SVG file using gzip compression. Low file size for quicker
downloading or uploading on the web. Inkscape can save .svgz files in both
Compressed Inkscape svg and Compressed Plain svg formats.
.pdf
An exchange format developed by Adobe, PDF documents can contain any

mixture of text, fonts, images and vector graphics. PDF files are able be viewed
across many software, operating system and hardware platforms while still
retaining the same formats, layout and properties that were intended by the
document's creator. Note: Inkscape's PDF is 1.4 only, and needs to be improved.
.xaml
EXtensible Application Markup Language. Developed by Microsoft to

define the Windows Vista Graphical Interface.
.png
PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a Raster Image format recommended

by W3C and is expected to eventually replace the GIF image format. It utilizes a
lossless data compresstion and includes alpha support for image transparency.
.bmp
Simple Raster Image format. BMP files are uncompressed so they produce
large files compared to other Raster formats such as PNG and JPG. Note:
Inkscape is only able to open/import BMP files.
.jpg, .jpeg
Raster Image format commonly used for photos on the internet as JPEG
images are able to be highly compressed giving very small file sizes. The
compression method causes some detail to be lossed, so the compression ratio
can be set at a trade-off of file size for image quality. Many digital cameras also
save pictures in JPEG format. Note: Inkscape is only able to open/import JPEG
files.
.tiff
Tiff (Tagged Image File Format) is a flexible Raster image format developed
for the professional printing process. Tiff files are very flexible supporting many
colour classes including alpha channels. Several forms of compression are able
to be used in tiff files, however their larger size makes them unsuitable for
online use. Note: Inkscape is only able to open/import TIFF files.
.ps, .eps, .epsi
PS (PostScript) is a page description language developed by Adobe in the early

'80s. As the first software/hardware independent format to incorporate text, raster
images and vector drawings it quickly became the comercial printers main language.
Now starting to show it's age ps is being replaced by pdf.
EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) is a subset of the ps file format used for

transferring graphic images between different software. EPS files contain PostScript
code as well as an optional preview image in TIFF, WMF, PICT or EPSI format.
EPSI (Encapsulated PostScript Interchange) is a raster image format used as a

preview image for EPS files. Containing only 7-bit ASCII data it has been used in
areas not supporting TIFF, WMF or PICT formats.
.dxf
A 2D and 3D graphics file format developed by Autodesk for the AutoCAD

system. Now supported by virtually all PC based CAD systems DXF is the
standard format used for technical drawings in the engineering and construction
industries. Note: Inkscape is only able to save DXF files.
.emf
Extended (Enhanced) Windows Metafile Format. A vector graphics format

recognized by many office applications including Openoffice and MS office;
basically a 32-bit version of the original Windows Metafile Format (.WMF)
.xcf
Native format for the GIMP image editor. A very flexible XCF files can
contain a lot of info including Alpha Chanels, Transparency, Paths, the current
selection and layers (which are kept when saved from Inkscape). Note: Inkscape
is only able to save XCF files.
.gif
A raster image format limited to 256 colors. GIF files overcome this
limitation by customizing their own pallets to suit the colors required for the
image. Owing to it's small size and the ability to add transparency the GIF
format is commonly used on the web for logos and animated logos (GIF files
can store multiple images enabling basic animation when viewed through a web
browser). Note Inkscape is only able to open/import GIF files.
.zip
(Compressed Inkscape SVG with Media). This option will save the drawing as
an Inkscape SVG file and then package it with all included linked graphics files
as a ZIP file. The resulting file will not be read by Inkscape, but once
uncompressed Inkscape can find the graphics when the SVG file is opened. Note
Inkscape is only able to save ZIP files.
Selector Tool
The Selector Tool is used to select, position and transform objects on the Canvas with the mouse or
other input device.
How to Use
Click once on an object with the Selector Tool to select it. The object will be framed with a bounding
box (a black, dashed line) and scale handles will appear. Click again on the same object and the scale
handles will change to rotation and skew handles. If the object is part of a group, the group will be
selected, and dragging the object handles will transform the group. Double-click an object with the
Selector Tool and the tool will change to the appropriate tool to edit the object (i.e., if you double-click
an ellipse, the Ellipse Tool will be activated, etc.).
Selecting Objects
Just click any object once to select it.
Adding Objects to and Removing Objects from Selection
Shift+Click objects to add them to the current selection or to remove them from the
selection.
Rubberband Selection
Rubberband selection is made by clicking on emptly canvas space (or over locked objects
which are unselectable) and dragging the rectangular "rubber band" over several objects (i.e.
click at one place and keep the button pressed while moving the mouse). Shift+Click will
start the Rubberband Selection over objects as well.
Touch Selection
Touch Selection allows you to select objects by drawing a freehand path across them. This
mode is very convenient in situations where you need to select objects so intermingled that
selecting them by the other methods is too difficult or tedious.
If you are drawing a rubberband rectangle, press Alt to switch it to the touch mode. The
rectangle will disappear and a red touch path will be shown instead. When dragging from an
empty space, you can press first Alt and then start to drag to get the touch mode (note that
your selection must be empty, otherwise Alt dragging will move the selected objects
instead).
To start a touch selection from a point over an object, or to add to existing selection by
touching, press Shift+Alt and then start to drag.
Inverting Object Selection
Use ! to invert the selection to all unselected objects within the current layer; use Alt+! to
invert the selection to all unselected objects within all unlocked layers.
Moving Objects
To move an object or an object group with the mouse, click on the object and hold the mouse
button while dragging to the new location.
Dragging an object or several objects while holding Ctrl enables you to keep them aligned
on an axis using the snap options.
To move objects precisely with the Selector Tool, you may use either of two methods:
Pressing the keyboard's cursor arrows moves selected objects 2px in the direction of the
arrow. The default step can be changed in Inkscape Preferences.
Entering the coordinates into the Tool Controls bar X and Y coordinate controls will
position the bottom left corner of the selection's bounding box at precisely the indicated
coordinates.
Transforming Objects
There are two modes within the Selector Tool which are used to transform objects: scale and
rotate/shear modes. You can switch between scale and shear/rotate modes with the mouse
or keyboard:
Activate scale mode by selecting an object with only one click (if it is unselected) or by
clicking it once (if it is already in rotate/shear mode). Activate rotate/shear mode by
selecting and object with a double-click (if it is unselected) or by clicking it once (if it is in
rotate mode).
Switch between modes by pressing Shift+S while using the Selector Tool.
Scaling
Scaling an object resizes it vertically, horizontally or both. To scale and object, activate the
scale mode.
To resize a selection in scale mode, drag the handles at the corners or press < or > (the factor
for key scaling can be set in Inkscape Preferences).
You may also scale a selection by adjusting the parameters of the width and height boxes on
the Tool Controls bar
Lock the width and height proportion with the lock toggle on the Tool Controls bar.
Hold Ctrl while dragging if proportion constraint is needed.
Hold Shift to use the center point of the object as the center of the transformation.
Dragging the scale handles with Alt scales the selection by an integer factor, i.e. up to 2, 3, 4,
etc. times the original size or down to 1/2. 1/3, 1/4, etc. of the original size either horizontally
or vertically (or both). * In some Linux distributions, you may need to adjust your meta-key
settings to make this work.
Rotating
Rotating a selection is done in rotate/shear mode, and makes the selection turn around its
axis point or rotation center.
To rotate the object with the Selector Tool, drag the arrow handles which are found at the
corners or press [ or ].
Hold Ctrl while rotating to constrain rotations to 15 degree increments.
Rotation Center
The Rotation Center of the selected object specifies the point around which to rotate the
object. It looks like a crosshair and may be placed anywhere on the canvas, not just within
the bounding box of the object. When several objects are selected, they use the rotation
center of the first selected object. If the first object does not have center set (i.e. if it's in a
default central position), then several objects will rotate around the geometric center of their
common bounding box
To move the rotation center of an object, click and drag it to the desired spot. It will snap to
the bounding box of the object as well as other snap points as set in the Preferences.
Compare rotation around center which is in it default position
with rotation around center which is moved to upper right corner of a shape:
Shift+click on the rotation center resets it back to the center of the object's box.
Skewing or Shearing
Skewing or shearing objects can be done in rotate/shear mode as well. This transformation
shifts the parallel bounding edges of the selection in opposite directions so that the selection
is warped diagonally.
To skew the object with the Selector Tool, just drag the arrow handles placed at the middle
of each sides. Horizontal handles will skew horizontally, meaning that horizontal line will
keep preserved and that only vertival lined will be affected
Mirroring
Mirroring flips a selection either vertically or horizontally. Flipping a selection while in

scale mode makes it flip within its bounding box, so that the bounding box remains fixed.
However, in rotate/shear mode mirroring happens about an (imaginary) vertical/horizontal

axis through the rotation center:
To mirror an object vertically, select Object->Flip Vertical or pressV.
To mirror an object horizontally, select Object->Flip Horizontal or press H.
There are also two buttons in the options bar that can do the same.
Scaling of Stroke Width, Rectangle Corners, and Fills
There four preferences that control whether or not to scale stroke widths, scale rectangle
corners, transform gradient fills, and transform pattern fills with the object, represented
by four toggle buttons in the Tool Controls Bar.
Tips
1. The Transform Window (Object->Transform or Shift+Ctrl+M) can be used for precise
transformations. Changes
2. Press Esc to deselect, cancel selection, or cancels drag or transformation.
3. Ctrl+Click or Shift+Ctrl+Click will select objects within groups from outside that group.
4. Select Under: in Selector, Alt+click selects the object at cursor which is below (in z-order) the
currently selected object at cursor; if the bottom object is reached, Alt+click again selects the top
object. Thus, several Alt+clicks will cycle selection through the z-order stack at the click point.
Combining Alt with Ctrl ("select in groups") and Shift ("add to selection") works, too. Note that
on Linux, many window managers steal Alt+click by default; reconfigure your WM so you can use
Alt+click in Inkscape.
5. Drag Selected: in Selector, Alt+Drag moves the currently selected object(s) no matter where you
start the drag, unlike regular drag that first selects the object under cursor. This is convenient for
dragging objects that are behind other objects in z-order. On Linux, you may need to disable
dragging the window with Alt in your WM if you want to use "drag selected".
Node Tool
The Node tool is used to select and manipulate nodes so as to be able to precisely modify the shape of
paths or curves. These paths can be stand alone objects or they can be attached to another object as a
mask or clipping path. In addition to allowing manipulating of node position, node handles extend
from the node when it is selected which define the direction of the path segments originating from that
node.
How to Use
To activate the Node Tool click on the Node Button in the Toolbox or press the F2 Key. The Tool
Controls Bar will change to display the following buttons.
Selecting Nodes
To select an object with the node tool you can click on it. Once an object is selected you can then select
and edit the individual nodes in the object. clicking on a node selects it, clicking on a path segment
between two nodes selects both nodes. If you want to add or remove nodes from the selection use
Shift+Click to toggle nodes into and out of the selection. You can do a rubberband selection around a
group of nodes using Click+Drag with the mouse. Nodes can also be added and removed from a
selection using Shift+Drag.
If you need to select all the nodes in a path or sub-path first select any node in the path. If you want to
select all the nodes in a path containing 2 or more sub-paths then press Ctrl+Alt+A. If you just want to
select the sub-path press Ctrl+A to select all nodes in a sub-path (if there are no sub-paths Ctrl+A will
select the whole path).
Moving Nodes and Node Handles
Once a node has been selected, it can be moved by Dragging the mouse. Use Ctrl+Drag to restrict the
movement to horizontal or vertical, and Ctrl+Alt+Drag to drag along the direction of the node's handles.
Nodes can also be moved using the Arrow keys. Pressing an Arrow by itself will move the selected
node(s) by the Nudge Distance (The default nudge distance is 2 SVG pixel units). Presshing
Shift+Arrow moves the node(s) by 10x the Nudge Distance. Pressing Alt+Arrow moves the node(s) 1
screen pixel and Alt+Shift+Arrow moves the node(s) 10 screen pixels.
Once a node has been selected, it displays it's handles. The node handles are used to define the shape of
a curve between two nodes. Rotating the node handle changes the direction of the curve as it leaves the
node and changing the length of the handle changes the distance the curve will travel before it
bends/interacts with the properties of the handle of the next node along the curve.
A node handle can be moved by Dragging the mouse. Using Ctrl+Drag locks the rotation of the handle
to 15 degree steps from 0, as well as snapping to it's original angle and the angle of the opposite node
handle. Shift+Drag rotates both handles at once and Alt+Drag locks the length of the handle as it is
rotated.
Add Node
Creates a new node between two selected nodes. You can also double-click on the path at the
place you want the node to be created.
Subtract Node
Removes selected nodes and joins adjacent nodes. It is also possible to press Ctrl+Del or
Ctrl+Backspace.
To preserve the shape of the path better, either select the node and press Del or Bksp, or
elseCtrl+Alt+Click on the node.
Join Nodes
Combines two end nodes into one node on a continuous path, moving both nodes to an
average middle point; Shift+J can also be used (hovering the cursor over one node will
preserve its position so that only the other node is moved).
Join Nodes with a New Segment
Adds a path segment between two open nodes.
Split Path Between Two non-Endpoint Nodes
Deletes the path segment between two selected nodes, leaving the nodes open (or
unconnected).
Break Path at Selected Nodes
Splits a single node into two nodes in the same position. The nodes can then be moved apart.
Make Selected Nodes Corner (Convert to Cusp)
Changes one or more selected nodes into cusp nodes or angled/corner nodes. Paths on cusp
nodes have an angle rather than an arch, and node handles can be moved independently of
each other.
Make Selected Nodes Smooth
Changes one or more selected nodes into smooth nodes. Also available by Shift+S. Paths
passing through smooth nodes have a continuous arch through the node point, but each
handle of the node can have different lengths. The position of one of the handles can be
locked by hovering the mouse over the node when pressing Shift+S.
Make Selected Nodes Symmetric
Changes one or more selected nodes into symmetric nodes. Also available by Shift+Y.
Paths passing through symmetric nodes have a continuous arc throught the node point, and
handles have the same length. The position of one of the handles can be locked by hovering
the mouse over the node when pressing Shift+Y.
Make Selected Nodes Auto-Smooth
Changes One or more selected notes into Auto-Smooth nodes. Also available using
Shift+A. When an auto-smooth node is moved or the nodes ajacent to it are moved, the
auto-smooth node will automatically adjust it's handles to keep the curve passing through it
as smooth as possible.
Note: Pressing Ctrl+Click on a particular node will toggle it through the above 4 node types.
Make Selected Segments Lines
Changes one or more selected segments (two adjacent nodes) into a straight path. Also
available using Shift+L
Make Selected Segments Curves
Changes one or more selected segments (two adjacent nodes) into a curved path. Also
available using Shift+U.
Convert Selected Object to Path
Converts an object that is not already a path, like a Live Shape or a text object, to path.
(This command effectively creates "outline" text, removing dependency on installed fonts.)
Convert Selected Object's Stroke to Paths
Creates an outline of a path, creating parallel combined paths separated by the width of the
stroke.
X and Y Co-ordinates
These two tools show the exact X and Y Co-ordinates for the selected node. If more than
one node is selected the co-ordinates shown are the midpoints between the selected nodes.
Using these tools you can also type in specific co-ordinates for the selected node(s) enabling
you to precisely position nodes. To the right of the co-ordinate buttons is the units button,
clicking on this button will give you a selection of units to use for displaying node co-
ordinates.
Note: If more than one node is selected when changing units, they will all be moved to the
midpoint between the selected nodes.
Edit the Clipping Path of the Object
Edits the Clipping Path of an object without having to release the relationship between the
path and the object.
Edit the Mask of the Object
Edits the Mask of an object without having to release the relationship between the masking
path and the object.
Show Next Path Effect Parameter for Editing
Cycles the display of LPE controls, often indicated by a red or green path or specific handle
types.
Show the Bezier Handles of Selected Nodes
Toggle whether the node's handles are displayed while editing.
Show the Outline of the Path
This button highlights the outline of the selected path. Can be useful in a complex image or
if your path's outline is completely transparent (e.g. when the path has a relationship with
another object such as a clipping/masking path or text put on a path).
Invert Node selection
The ! key inverts node selection in the current subpath(s) (i.e. subpaths with at least one selected
node); Alt ! inverts in the entire path. (This is similar to how these keys work in Selector, with
current subpath(s) instead of the current layer.)
Hotkeys
Multiple select
Shift+Click to select several nodes in succession.
Near selection
Clicking on a selected path selects the two nodes closest to the click point (on either side).
Shift+Click adds or removes these two nodes to the node selection (when only one path is
selected; otherwise Shift+Click works as in Selector).
Adding and Deleting nodes
Double-click or Shift+Alt+Click anywhere on the selected path (even if it is under other
objects) creates a new node at the click point, without changing the shape of the path.
Tab selects the next node
Shift+Tab selects the previous node
Ctrl+Alt+click deletes a node
Manipulating Nodes
Pressing Ctrl+Click on a node handle and it will retract back to a length of 0. To pull the
handle back out of the node use Shift+Drag.
Pressing [ or ] keys will rotate the handles around the node by 1 angle step (the default angle
is 15 degrees), pressing Alt+[ or ] will restrict the rotation to 1 pixel. If the node is a corner
or cusp holding the left or right Ctrl key while pressing [ or ] will restrict the rotation to the
left or right node handle, using the left or right Alt+[ or ] keys wil rotate the left or right
handle by 1 pixel.
Pressing the < or > keys will increase or decrease the length of the node handles by 1scale
step. (the default step is 2 SVG pixel units). For any node type except symmetric holding
the left or right Ctrl key when pressing < or > will restrict the scaling to the right or left
node. Alt+< or > will change the scale by 1 screen pixel (as with the Ctrl key the handle
being scaled depends on which Alt key is pressed).
Rotating objects or control handles of a node with Ctrl restricts rotation to 15 degree
increments. Dragging nodes may be restricted to horizontal/vertical with Ctrl and to the
directions of the node's handles (or there perpendiculars) with Ctrl+Alt. Dragging a node's
control points with Alt locks the length of the handle, and with Shift, rotates the other
handle by the same angle. When several nodes are selected, pressing < or > scales, [ or ]
rotates the selected nodes as if they were an “object”, around the center of that object. So,
for example, in a single-path silhouette portrait, you can select the nodes of the nose and
rotate/scale the nose as a whole without breaking the path into pieces. Pressing Alt with
these keys gives pixel-sized movement depending on zoom, the same as in Selector. Also,
you can press h or v to flip the selected nodes horizontally or vertically.
Ctrl+click toggles cusp/smooth/symmetric/auto-smooth.
Tips
1. When an object is selected handles appear making it possible to handle the shape of the object in an
intuitive and precise way.
2. You can switch the not-yet-finalized (red) segment of the path being drawn from curve to line
(Shift L) or back to curve (Shift U).
3. Esc deselects, cancels selection, and cancels drag or transformation of any kind (so far only in
selector and node edit). Arrows, Ctrl+a, and Tab / Shift+Tab act on nodes in node editor exactly
as they do on objects in Selector. The first Escape or empty-space click deselects any selected
nodes, the second one deselects the selected object removing the node display.
4. The Node Tool selects objects regardless of grouping. This means you don't need to switch to
selector for a Ctrl+click if you want to edit a grouped path.
5. You can reverse the direction of selected path(s) either via Path > Reverse or by pressing 'r' in node
tool (useful for markers and combining paths).
6. Ctrl+click on a node handle retracts that handle back to its node.
7. If a node does not show one or both handles (i.e. they are retracted), you can drag a handle out by
dragging away from the node with Shift.
8. Pressing Ctrl+A with some nodes selected will select not all nodes in the path but all nodes in the
subpath(s) containing the selected node(s). To select all nodes in the path unconditionally, either
deselect any nodes before pressing Ctrl+A, or use Select all in all subpaths (Ctrl+Alt+A) in Node
tool.
9. Edit the selected path by dragging directly on the path.
10. if you press Shift before starting to drag, you always get a node selection rubberband rectangle
11. When you switch the type of the selected node to Smooth or Symmetric by pressing Shift+S /
Shift+Y, you can now preserve the position of one of the two handles by hovering your mouse
over it, so that only the other handle is rotated/scaled to match.
12. You can grow or shrink node selection by hovering the mouse pointer over a node and using
mousewheel (up = grow, down = shrink) or the keys PageUp (grow) and PageDown (shrink).
Growing adds the closest unselected node to the selection; shrinking deselects the farthest selected
node. There are two modes that differ by how the closest/farthest nodes are chosen:
Spatial selection (mousewheel, PageUp / PageDown): distances to nodes are

measured directly, regardless of which subpath a node belongs to.
Linear selection (Ctrl+mousewheel, Ctrl+PageUp/Ctrl+PageDown): node

distances are measured along the path, and only the nodes belonging to the same
subpath as the hovered node are considered (i.e. other subpaths are never
selected).
13. This technique is convenient for quickly selecting an area in a complex path starting from a center -
for example, for node sculpting.
14. If any of the nodes in the currently selected path is mouseovered, then horizontal/vertical flipping
('H' and 'V' keys), stepwise rotation ('[' and ']' keys) and scaling ('<' and '>' keys) now all use this
specific node as center/axis. If there is no mouseovered node, the center of the bounding box is
used instead (as is currently the case unconditionally). Nodes that are covered by one of their
handles are also detected as mouseovered.
15. Two entry fields are available on the Tool Controls bar which allow precise editing of the
coordinates of selected nodes.
16. The message, "To join, you must have two endnodes selected" warns that the command only
works on endnodes. To see if a line segment ends in an endnode, drag the middle of the line. If a
closed loop forms, with two paths between two nodes, then the nodes are not endnodes. To convert
a node into an endnode, select the line connected to the node by clicking once on the line, click a
second time to select one of the overlapping line segments, and click on the split path tool to
remove one of the line segments.
Tweak Tool
The Tweak Tool is an exciting way to edit drawings which largely blurs the distinction between vector
and raster editing. Instead of meticulously selecting some objects and then performing an action on the
selection, you can select all objects (or all objects you are interested in) and apply the Tweak Tool's
brush to smoothly and naturally change the shape or style of only those objects (or parts thereof) that the
brush touches.
The editing modes of the Tweak tool fall into 3 different categories: Path Editing Modes where the
shape of individual paths is modified; Colour Modes where the colour of individual objects is modified
and Object Editing Modes where whole objects are moved, scaled or rotated but their shapes are kept
intact.
The area of the tool's action - its brush - is marked by an orange-colored circular outline that moves with
your mouse cursor. However, that area actually has no sharp boundaries; the power of the tool's action
falls off gradually, following a smooth bell-shaped profile. This makes the tool act softly and smoothly.
The tool will work on any number of selected objects; for example, you can select all Ctrl + A and
"smear" your entire drawing by Push mode or paint it by Color Paint mode. You can also apply it to
groups of objects; it will go into groups and act on individual objects inside groups. If you're trying to use
it without anything selected, it will remind you by a statusbar message to select some objects.
How to Use
Width
The width of the tool's brush, in the range from 1 to 100, can be changed by the Width
control in the tool's controls bar above the canvas. You can also change width by Left and
Right arrow keys (same as in the Calligraphy Tool) at any time (including during action) as
well as Home and End. Also, as in Calligraphy Tool, the visible width of the brush is
independent of zoom; simply zooming in or out is often easier than adjusting the width if you
want to cover a smaller or larger area of the drawing.
Force
The next control is Force which adjusts the power of the action, also in the range from 1 to
100. You can also change width by Up and Down arrow keys at any time (including during
action).
If you have a pressure-sensitive tablet and your "Use pressure" button on the right-hand end
of the controls bar is on, then the force will also depend on how hard you actually press your
pen into your tablet, changing in the range from zero to whatever you set in the Force
control. If all you have is a mouse, then the force will be constant but still settable by the
Force control.
Path editing modes
The Tweak tool has a number of modes, selectable by toggle buttons in the tool's Controls
bar and by keyboard shortcuts. Some of these modes change the shapes of paths, others
affect the whole object leaving the path shape intact, while still others affect the colors of
objects. All these modes share the Width and Force controls but otherwise are quite
different. Let's look at the path editing modes first.
Unlike the Node tool, to edit paths with the Tweak tool you don't need to worry about where
the nodes of a path are and how to manipulate them. You just apply the tool's brush to any
point, and the selected paths at that point will reshape smoothly and naturally - as if made of
soft jelly - regardless of where its nodes lie. If applied to a shape or text object, the tool
converts them to paths automatically.
While not very useful for technical drawings, tweaking paths will be indispensable for
artistic uses of Inkscape - cartoons, drawings, sketches, anime, etc. This new functionality is
somewhat similar to the tools such as "Pucker" and "Bloat" in the latest versions of Adobe
Illustrator.
There are currently six path editing modes in the Tweak Tool: Push, Shrink/ Grow,
Attract/ Repel, and Roughen.
Push
This default mode of the tool, Push, Shift + P simply displaces the part of the path under the
cursor in the direction of the drag. The path behaves like soft jelly, bending and bulging
smoothly and naturally. It's an easy way to produce various irregular, lifelike, handmade-
looking shapes starting from something as simple as an ellipse or a calligraphic stroke. For
parallel-stroke hatching (engraving) done in the Calligraphy tool, pushing is an easy way to
bend, pinch, or curve the entire hatching uniformly.
Shrink and Grow
Shrink ( Shift + S ) and Grow ( Hold Shift when using the Tweak Tool) are two opposite
modes that move each point of a path in a direction perpendicular to the path's surface at the
point, either inwards (Shrink) or outwards (Grow). This is similar to the Inset and Outset
commands, except that the Tweak Tool can act on a part of a path instead of the whole path.
For example, the visible lightness/darkness of an engraving hatching may not exactly
correspond to your artistic intention. Also, the ends of Calligraphy pen strokes are often far
from ideal - they may be too blunt or have unsightly bends or blobs. This is where the Tweak
Tool may help. Select all the strokes in a hatching pattern and apply a light Shrink action
where you want the lines to become thinner (and the hatching to become lighter), up until
total disappearance. If you press hard, shrinking works as an eraser, so you can easily clean
the strokes' ends to make them thin, sharp, and uniform. Conversely, applying Grow makes
strokes wider (i.e. the hatching becomes darker).
Of course, shrinking and growing are useful not only for calligraphic strokes. Same as with
Push, with Shrink and Grow you can sculpt any path, spawning smooth treacle-like
appendages with Grow and carving holes with Shrink. Unlike the "node sculpting" mode in
the Node tool, however, this does not require adding new nodes to the shape.
Attract and Repel
Attract ( Shift+ A )and Repel ( Hold Shift when applying tool) mode works by moving
each affected point on a path towards (Attract) or from (Repel) the cursor point. In some
cases this may look similar to Shrink and Grow, but the difference is that shrinking/growing
moves paths perpendicularly to the path in each point, whereas attracting/repelling moves
them to or from the cursor regardless of the path shape. These modes are similar to the Pinch
effect in AI; you can use them for various central-symmetric distortions in parts of your
paths.
Roughen
The Roughen (Shift +R ) mode does exactly this: roughens the edge of the path without
changing its overall shape. Slight roughening simply makes the edge crooked and uneven;
strong roughening tears and explodes the edge into random blobs and splotches.
NOTE: This operation, especially when applied with high Fidelity, adds a lot of nodes,
increasing the size of your SVG document and may slow down Inkscape considerably. In
particular, pushing, shrinking, or growing of a roughened path becomes much slower and
more difficult. It's recommended to finalise the overall shape of a path first and roughen it, if
necessary, only as the final step.
Fidelity
Any tweaking of a path slightly distorts the entire path, including even those parts that you
didn't touch. These distortions are similar to those that a Simplify command produces. The
Fidelity value (also in the range from 1 to 100, default is 50) allows you to control the
amount of these distortions. With a higher fidelity, the distortions are less noticeable, but the
path may end up having a lot of nodes which inflates up the SVG size and slows down
Inkscape.
The best value of Fidelity depends on the nature of your artwork. If you're sculpting an
amorphous blob, you can do with low fidelity of about 20. If, however, you are pushing or
inflating a text string (as a single path) and want the letters outside the distorted area to
remain crisp and clean, you will need to raise fidelity to 80 or more.
Object editing modes
The Object editing modes, unlike the path editing modes, change the position, size, rotation, etc of
objects instead of their shapes. Yet they share enough common features with the path editing modes to be
part of the same tool: These modes also use a circular soft-edged brush controlled by the Width and Force
parameters on the Controls bar and affected by the pen pressure (if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet).
Push Mode
Attract/Repel Objects Mode
Jitter Mode
Scale Mode
Rotate Mode
Duplicate/Delete Mode
Blur Mode
Color editing modes
The Color Paint ( Shift + C ) and Color Jitter ( Shift + J ) modes, unlike the path editing
modes, change the colors of objects instead of their shapes. Yet they share enough common
features with the path editing modes to be part of the same tool: These modes also use a
circular soft-edged brush controlled by the Width and Force parameters on the Controls bar
and affected by the pen pressure (if you have a pressure-sensitive tablet).
Color Paint applies the style of the tool to the selected objects under the brush. The
style of the tool is visible in the style swatch at the rightmost end of the tool's control
bar; it can be changed by clicking on the color palette or by any other style assignment
command, such as Fill and Stroke dialog. (Note: unlike all other tools, in Tweak tool
in Color Paint mode you cannot assign style directly to selected objects; any style-
setting command changes the tool's style instead.)
The fill from the tool's style applies to the fills of the painted objects, and the stroke
applies to the strokes. If the tool's style has no fill or no stroke, it won't affect fills or
strokes, correspondingly. For example, if you want to color the fills of objects blue but
leave their strokes untouched, assign blue fill to the tool's style (just click blue on the
palette) but set its stroke to None (middle-click the Stroke swatch in the statusbar).
Similarly, master opacity in the tool's style affects master opacities of the touched
objects (if the O channel is on, see below).
This mode allows you to literally paint over objects, shifting their colors towards the
target style of the tool. For example, if you paint with yellow fill over a blue-filled
object, the object will become greenish blue, then green, then yellowish green, and end
up being exactly the yellow color you're painting with. This speed of this gradual
transition depends on both Force parameter and pen pressure; also, objects touched by
the periphery of the brush are less affected than those hit by the brush centre. Overall,
using this tool is very similar to a soft brush in a raster editor such as Gimp or
Photoshop.
Color Jitter mode does not apply any color, but instead jitters (randomises) the colors
of the objects it touches. The force of the action determines how strong is the
randomisation, i.e. how far the colors deviate from the original values. This mode does
not use the tool's style.
Both modes work on flat fills and gradients; for gradients, the tool takes into account not
only the position of the entire object with gradient, but also the position of each gradient stop
relative to the brush. This means that, for example, you can change the blue color only in an
object filled with blue-red gradient simply by painting over its blue end with a brush small
enough to not touch the red. (Note that color tweaking does not create gradients on objects
that used flat color before, but only adjusts existing gradients in the drawing.)
Channels
Color Paint and Color Jitter honor the Channels control. This control comprises the four
buttons: H, S, L, and O, which allow you to turn on and off the tool's action on the object's
hue, saturation, lightness, and opacity, correspondingly. For example, if you want to raise the
saturation of some part of your drawing without changing the hue, select some maximum-
saturation color (e.g. pure red) and turn off all Channels buttons except S. Similarly, you can
replace the hues without affecting saturation or lightness (only H pressed), or lighten/darken
all colors without changing their hues and saturation (only L pressed). Pressing O allows you
to apply the master opacity from the tool's style to the master opacity of objects (but not fill
or stroke opacity).
Usage notes
Color painting with Tweak tool is similar, but not exactly analogous to bitmap painting.
Even though the tool itself works as a soft brush, it still applies its color to vector objects,
which behave as vector objects usually do. For example, if you want to change the tint of the
face in your drawing, and if a hand in the drawing is part of the same object as the face, that
hand will change its tint too even if it's located far from the point you are painting. (We
foresee a "fracture" command in one of the next versions of Inkscape which will help you
turn a monolithic object into a mosaic of small fragments that will be then easy to paint with
Tweak tool.) Still, even with this limitation, color painting is a novel way of dealing with
vector drawings which allows you to quickly and intuitively make adjustments which would
be awkward and slow with traditional approach.
Drawings containing patterns or scatterings of small independent objects are best suited for
color painting with Tweak tool. Examples include:
freehand drawings with Calligraphy pen, consisting of many separate strokes;
gradient meshes imported from Adobe Illustrator files (Inkscape renders these meshes
as lattices of small polygons; while there's no direct support for gradient meshes in
Inkscape yet, color painting on such lattices is almost as good);
text converted to paths and with Break Apart command applied so that each letter is a
separate path;
patterns made with the Tile Clones command; note that you need to unset the fill
and/or stroke on the original object and use the Color tab to assign some initial color to
the clones - this will make them paintable with the Tweak tool without unlinking.
Moreover, color tweaking can be useful for compositions with a few objects or even for
single objects. Unlike all other color selection methods, painting with the Tweak tool
implements the color mixing metaphor which is much more familiar to traditional artists than
RGB sliders or even the color wheel. For example, start with a rectangle of pure blue color;
then, pick different colors by Color Paint and apply light touches with minimum Force and
minimum pen pressure: add a little green, a little brown, a little yellow, etc. until you have
the exact hue you need. Similarly, you can whiten or blacken any hue by admixing white or
black.
You can also use color tweaking to add a tint, darken/lighten, saturate/desaturate, or color
jitter your entire drawing. Just select all in all layers, zoom out, choose a large brush width so
it covers all of the drawing, and apply a little color tweaking (with minimum Force) that will
therefore affect all visible objects.
Hotkeys
W, Shift + F2: switch to the Tweak Tool
Shift +P: switch to the Push mode
Shift+S: switch to the Shrink mode
Shift+G: switch to the Grow mode
Shift+A: switch to the Attract mode
Shift+E: switch to the Repel mode
Shift+R: switch to the Roughen mode
Shift+C: switch to the Color Paint mode
Shift+J: switch to the Color Jitter mode
Left, Right, Home, End: change width
Up, Down: change force
mouse drag: act on selected path in the current mode
Ctrl+mouse drag: temporarily switch to Shrink (while Ctrl is down)
Shift+Ctrl+mouse drag: temporarily switch to Grow (while Shift+Ctrl is down)
Zoom Tool
Zoom Tool is a great way to navigate on the canvas. It can be accessed via several ways that are very
complementary and comfortable. Each zoom action is saved in a special history so that one can easily be
zooming and unzooming without difficulties. All zooming operations via mouse preserve the point under
the cursor (no centering).
How to use
Use this tool by:
clicking in the toolbox :

pressing : F3
or : Ctrl Alt Mouse wheel
or : Shift Middle Mouse Button
Zooming
Zooming is just set the zoom factor to a higher level so that one can work more precisely.
Pressing + does the same.
Unzoom
Unzooming can be used to have a larger view of the drawing or area. Pressing - can unzoom
too.
Zoom to 1:1
Just displays the drawing at real pixel size. This way a banner drawing (for example) which
is 468 pixels wide, will be 468 pixels on screen. If the Inkscape window is smaller, some part
of the drawing may be invisible.
Zoom to 1:2
Just displays the drawing at half the real pixel size. This way a Banner drawing which is 468
pixels wide, will be 234 pixels on screen. If the Inkscape window is smaller, some part of the
drawing may be invisible.
Zoom to 2:1
Just displays the drawing at twice the real pixel size. This way a Banner drawing which is
468 pixels wide, will be 936 pixels on screen. If the Inkscape window is smaller, some part
of the drawing may be invisible.
Adjust selection to window
The selected area will fill the entire Inkscape window.
Adjust drawing to window
The existing current drawing will be displayed to fit the window size.
Adjust page to window
Best to have a complete overview of the page and work on a layout, makes the whole page fit
the window size depending on the orientation. Pressing 5 does the same action.
Adjust page width to window
Same as before except the whole page may not be displayed, especially if the page is portrait
oriented. Gives a better result than previous with landscape drawing. Press 6 to activate it
with keyboard.
Previous zoom
Come back to the previous zoom factor, as saved in the zoom history. Inkscape now
preserves the history of zoom settings for each document. The ` key restores previous zoom;
pressing ` repeatedly will guide you through all the zoom settings you've used in this session.
Shift + ` moves forward in the zoom history.
Next zoom
Goes back to the next zoom factor, as saved in the zoom history, especially when previous
zoom has just be used.
Hotkeys
Shift is diminishing zoom factor.
Middle click zooms in, Shift + middle click zooms out (in addition to middle button +
drag which pans canvas).
Tips
1. By default, rotating the mouse wheel scrolls the canvas vertically and Ctrl+wheel zooms in and out.
Now, if you turn on the Mouse wheel zooms by default checkbox in the Scrolling tab of the
Inkscape Preferences dialog, this behavior is reversed: mouse wheel zooms without Ctrl and scrolls
with Ctrl. This new mode should be familiar for users of AutoCAD and CorelDraw.
2. Now you can use Shift+middle button drag, in any tool, to zoom into an area. This works the
same as simple drag in Zoom tool, but is faster because it does not require switching away from
your current tool. Together with middle button drag (panning), middle button click (zoom in)
and Shift+middle button click (zoom out), this completes the set of canvas navigation shortcuts
available in any tool or context.
3. In the Zoom tool, right mouse button always zooms out instead of calling the context menu
Rectangle Tool
With the Rectangle Tool, one can draw rectangular Live Shapes.
How to Use
A new rectangle is drawn while the tool is active by pressing the left mouse button and dragging the
mouse.
Rectangles have two resize handles in opposite corners. Dragging the resize handles resizes the
rectangle's width and height together.
Rectangles also have corner radius handles to set the shape of the corners. There are two radius
dimensions which can be set either together or independently.
Hotkeys
Ctrl+Drag on handles constrains the width and height of the rectangle while resizing so that they
retain their current ratios when resizing; when drawing a new rectangle, this method will create a
perfect square.
Shift+Drag on handles resizes the rectangle from its center and not from the opposite corner of the
grabbed handle; when drawing a new rectangle, the rectangle will be drawn with its center at the
starting point rather than one of its corners.
SHIFT+Click on a rounding handle removes rounding.
CTRL+Click on a rounding handle makes rounding radii equal.
3D Box Tool
Inkscape is a two-dimensional drawing tool. However, very often it is used to create drawings or objects
that appear three-dimensional. The 3D box tool helps you create such drawings by automating the most
common operation: creating a box in a given 3D perspective. The tool automatically ensures that all sides
of the box lie on the corresponding perspective lines.
Basic Usage
In order to represent an object in 3D (it's emulated 3D, so it's rather 2.5D), the 3D box tool deals with
axes (XYZ), planes (XY, XZ, YZ), parallel lines (PL), converging lines and vanishing points (VP).
Each dimension can lie on either parallel or converging lines. These lines are drawn in different colors, so
that users could distinguish one line from another:
red lines stand for X direction (width);

blue lines stand for Y direction (height);
yellow lines stand for Z direction (depth).
If lines are converging, they have a vanishing point — a point where they cross. Here is a sample to
illustrate how it works:
X is the vanishing point for X plane
Z is the vanishing point for Z plane
Y are parallel lines for Y plane
Here is what happens when you keep moving borders of X and Z planes closer to vanishing points:
X and Z planes nearly converged, but Y is more or less the same.
By default Inkscape makes X and Z lines converging, because it represents usual perspective.
Note : Parallel lines do not necessarily have to be 90 degrees to X axis — changing the angle will
somewhat skew the object.
Drawing a 3D box
Press X or Shift+F4 to switch to the 3D Box Tool. Start dragging cursor on canvas. You can
use Shift+drag without releasing the mouse button to extrude in Z direction.
If you need to draw another 3D box with same vanishing point, just keep the previous box
selected and start drawing a new one:
Editing a 3D box
Adjust any of its 3 dimensions by handles. The 4 handles on the front X/Y side resize it, the
four ones on the back X/Y side expand/contract the box in Z direction. With Shift, the
functions of handles on front and back sides are reversed. With Ctrl, the side-resizing
handles snap to the coordinate axes or diagonals.
Moving a 3D box
You can move a 3D box in perspective by dragging its center marked as an "X" character;
without modifiers, movement occurs within the XY-plane (press Ctrl to constrain the
movement to the directions of the coordinate axes or diagonals), with Shift the box moves
parallel to the Z-axis.
Handling vanishing points
Adjust the vanishing points of a perspective by dragging them on the canvas (see below) or
toggling their states; all boxes sharing this perspective are affected by a vanishing point
move.
When several boxes are selected, all vanishing points of their associated perspectives are
shown on the canvas. If vanishing points of different perspectives coincide, they are
combined in a single "dragger". Moving this dragger moves all the vanishing points
simultaneously and transforms the associated boxes accordingly. Note that some non-
selected boxes may also be reshaped if their perspectives share the same vanishing point.
Pressing Shift while moving the dragger can be used to only transform the selected boxes,
separating their perspectives from the non-selected ones'. On the other hand, when a
vanishing point being dragged comes close enough to another one, both snap together and
are combined in a single dragger.
Rotating perspective lines
The various kinds of parentheses, namely [ ], ( ), { }, can be used to rotate infinite (i.e.,
parallel) perspective lines in X-, Y-, and Z-direction, respectively. Closing parentheses rotate
clockwise and opening parentheses rotate counterclockwise. The angle of rotation is taken
from the preferences. Pressing Alt reduces the amount of rotation to 1 screen pixel.
Changing mode of perspective lines
When the 3D box tool is active, Shift+X, Shift+Y, and Shift+Z toggle perspective lines in
the corresponding direction between "converging" and "parallel".
Tips
Inside 3D Box tool
In SVG, a 3D box is represented as a group (svg:g) with a special extension attribute (in
Inkscape's namespace); this group contains the 6 quadrilateral paths representing the sides of
the box. Only the 3D box tool treats this object as a box; for all other tools it is just a group,
so you can select any of the paths by Ctrl+click, apply any style to it, delete it, etc. You can
of course transform the entire box or any face in it using Selector or Node tools.
Ellipse
With the Ellipse tool, the Inkscape artist can draw an ellipse, circle, or arc. As a Live Shape, the object
created with the Ellipse tool can be converted from an ellipse to an arc, and can be transformed into any
elliptical shape.
How to Use
When the ellipse is first drawn with the Ellipse tool, there are three edit handles, top, left and right.
The top and left square handles control the horizontal and vertical dimensions of the shape.
The right round handle edits the arc of the shape. Dragging the right handle with the Ellipse tool in either
direction, horizontal or vertical, will start an arc. When the tool is moved inside the bounds of the shape
(the whole ellipse) the arc will be open. When the tool is dragging the arc and is moved outside the
bounds of the shape, the arc will be closed and create a pie shape.
Tips
1. Hold Ctrl while dragging the arc control to enable snapping at angles as specified in the Inkscape
Preferences window.
2. Hold Shift while drawing to draw the shape with its centre at the cursor's point of origin in order to
keep position static during the drawing.
3. Hold Ctrl while drawing to keep the bound of the ellipse always touching the cursor - otherwise the
cursor indicates the intersection of the x and y bound coordinates.
Star Tool
Stars and polygons are special shapes, difficult to draw by hand while maintaining a regular shape. The
Star Tool enables stars and regular polygons to be drawn easily in the document. This tool is very
convenient even though it may be less often used than the Rectangle Tool and Ellipse Tool.
Inkscape stars are Live Shapes, and can thus be infinitely modified after creation, with handles or tool
control parameters. By modifying some of the following parameters, this tool can be used to draw
triangles and other regular polygons with any number of sides. The included deformation methods allow
for some amazing shapes, all while keeping the powerful aspects of easy editability of an SVG
Primitive.
How to Use
To switch to the Star Tool, you can either
click the Toolbox icon

or press * ( Shift+8 )
Options
The tool options can be accessed in the Tool Controls bar
Drawing a Regular Polygon or Star
The left icons allow respectively to use the Regular Polygon Mode or the Star Mode
.
The next polygon/star will be created in the Selected Mode. An object's mode and shape
will be changed if it is selected while one of these icon is clicked.
In Regular Polygon Mode, the shape has no spokes. Only one handle is available,
allowing modification of the size and orientation of the polygon.
In Star Mode, spokes start from regular polygon corners. There are two handles - the red
handle is the same as for polygons, allowing modification of size and orientation of the
object; the white handle at an interior spoke angle allows simultaneous modification of all
the spokes' shapes and sizes.
Corners
You can define the number of corners and spokes of the shape by adjusting the corners
parameter - it can either be specified before drawing a polygon or dynamically modified after
selecting an existing polygon. Corner counts are limited from 3 to 1024.
Spoke Ratio
Only accessible in Star Mode, it allows you to define the ratio of spoke length between the
star core and its spoke tips. This parameter range is from 0.0 to 1.0.
Rounded
This setting allows you to round the corners of the shape in both Polygon Mode and Star
Modes of this tool. The range value is from -10.0 to 10.0. Press Shift and drag either handle
to modify the rounding of the shape on-canvas.
Note that dragging each handle gives different results because the degree of rounding is
proportional to the angle of displacement from the center of the shape - thus a drag of the
middle handle will create a greater degree of rounding than a same-length drag of the outer
handle.
The following image shows some rounding examples, with regular polygons on the first line
and stars at the second. There are infinitely more possibilities than shown here.
There is a Spirograph Tool ( Effects > Render > Spirograph ) which can produce similar
effects and much more.
Randomised
The Randomised option of Star Tool displaces the inner and outer points of the spokes to
random coordinates around the center of the star. The range value runs from -10.0 to 10.0.
Near 0.0, the randomness of the displacement ratio low, and it increases as the parameter
approaches -10.0 or 10.0.
You can also change the power of the randomised effect on-screen by pressing Alt and
dragging the handle.
Default
Reset shape parameters to defaults.
Additional information
Polygons are always drawn with their geometric centers at the cursor origin - this cannot be
changed
Ctrl - Constrain the star shape to follow some angles. The cursor move allow to modify
angle by regular increment. The increment value can be defined in the general preferences
window: File > Inkscape Preferences... > Steps tab.
Spiral
The Spiral Tool is one of the special class of tools that create Live Shapes. With the Spiral tool, shapes
of spiral arcs can be drawn.
How to use
Call the Spiral Tool with its icon on the Toolbox or by pressing F9 or I.
The spiral drawn with the tool has two handles, one on either end of the shape's path. Clicking and
dragging the inner-most handle with the spiral tool will change the interior radius of the arc, and the
handle on the outter-most end of the path edits the number of turns of the spiral.
There are four options in the Tool Controls bar which can be used to further manipulate the spiral:
Turns adjusts the number of rotations the spiral takes around its center. Increasing the turns will
decrease the width between successive spiral paths, since this option does not increase the
dimensions of the spiral.
Divergence tightens the spiral either toward its center (as if it were being wound tighter) or toward
the exterior. When the divergence is increased above 1, it makes the outer part of the spiral looser,
or widens the gap between its outermost paths. The reverse is true for values below 1.
Inner Radius does the same as dragging the inner handle. The inner radius parameter is a relation
or fraction representing the distance from the exact center of the spiral to the beginning of the inner
spiral path relative to the whole spiral radius. When the inner handle has been moved from its
position at the center of the spiral, the radius becomes more than 0. When this is true, growing the
spiral path by dragging the outer handle will decrease the inner radius, showing its relative nature.
The Broom icon will clear all parameters to the defaults set at the spiral's creation.
Key Commands
Ctrl drag constrains the rotation angle to 15 degree increments
Outer handle:
Shift drag scales the spiral and ;rotates it
Alt drag keeps the radius static while increasing or decreasing the turns around the center
Inner handle:
Alt drag vertically adjusts divergence
Alt click resets divergence
Shift click moves the inner handle to the center
Pencil Tool
With the Pencil Tool ( P or F6 ), the Inkscape artist creates freehand paths by drawing directly on the
canvas in the desired curves. Inkscape evaluates the line or shape drawn by the user and produces nodes
to form the path. After the path is drawn, the nodes of the path can be edited with the Node Tool, like
other paths.
How to use
Choose the Pencil Tool, then click and drag the mouse to draw the line. By default it has no fill, but this
can be set by any means (swatch or Fill and Stroke dialog). The line can also be set with stroke
properties and colors in the Fill and Stroke dialog.
It is possible to close the line drawn while returning towards the initial point. When the mouse is close to
this point, the point changes color to red to specify that a release of the mouse at this moment closes the
shape.
Tips
These tools can create single dots by Ctrl + click on the canvas. This creates a small circle filled with the
current stroke color. The radius can be set in the Preferences of the respective tools (it is specified as a
multiple of the current stroke width). Shift + Ctrl + click creates a dot twice the specified size, and Alt +
Ctrl + click varies the size of the created dots randomly.
Bezier with Pen Tool

Bezier Curves, available in the Pen Tool, enables you to draw smooth curves with precision.
How to use Bézier
To create a Bezier curve in Inkscape, click on the button in the Toolbox, or press b or Shift + F6.
Left click to create the first node.
To draw a segment, just click again further where you want the segment to end. Inkscape immediately
draws a straight line between these two points.
Delete a Segment
To erase the last segment/node, press del.
Draw a Curve
If you want to draw a curve, keep the button pressed after clicking and drag to make curve
control point appear. They are symmetrically placed to make a perfect smooth curve so that
you also need to move only one node. To stop drawing the actual curve you can either click
the first node of the global curve (if you want it to be a closed shape), or press Enter or
double-click.
Continue a Path
To continue a path that has been previously drawn, just press b to activate the pen and click
on either the beginning or the end.
A pen made path can be continued with the pencil F6 if needed.
Tips
A right-click closes the shape but doesn't add any new points. It then becomes a path that you can edit
with any other tool, especially the Node Tool F2.
Further editing of any curve can be accomplished with the Node Tool.
Calligraphy Tool
The Calligraphy Tool uses dynamic drawing techniques that apply simple filters to the cursor place and
motion. The SVG "stylus" transforms as if it were a physical stylus or brush, depending on its mass,
speed, orientation and friction. (Some of these parameters are affected only by use of an input device
such as a drawing tablet.) By changing these parameters, various types of "strokes" can be made. This
makes the Calligraphy tool excellent for drawing more natural, smooth and consistent strokes,
particularly when using a pen tablet or similar input device.
The Calligraphy Tool does not draw a single path line like the freehand tool, but a whole filled shape.
This is not a live shape, like rectangles and stars, but an arbitrary shape consisting of node paths. Being
comprised of multiple nodes, calligraphy strokes can be modified by other path tools, for example the
Node and Tweak tools. Also, like all arbitrary SVG shapes, calligraphy paths have strokes at their edges,
so they are affected by the usual Fill and Stroke settings.
How to Use
The Calligraphy Tool can be called by clicking its icon in the Toolbox or by pressing C or Ctrl+F6.
Calligraphy shapes are drawn in the same manner as any other shape - just click on the canvas and drag.
Options
The Calligraphy Tool has many options available in the Tool Controls bar which allow the artist to create
very specific types of strokes.
Width
Used to set the basic width of the line. This basic width is then automatically modified
depending on the other values (such as pressure of the tablet pen) and settings (such as the
toggle setting of Input Device Pressure).
Warning: Calligraphy stroke width is relative to the current view and zoom factor.
Input Device Pressure
When on, Calligraphy uses pen tablet pressure to affect such values as stroke width.
Trace Lightness to Width
Trace Lightness to Width adjusts the width of the stroke to the lightness of objects behind
it. In the background objects, white translates into the minimum stoke width (1) and black
translates to the maximum (which is set by the Width parameter). This works with both
bitmap and vector images and allows the artist to not only hatch over an imported bitmap
image or any drawing, but to do so automatically reproducing the highlights and shades of
the background with your strokes becoming lighter and heavier as needed. This can work
alone or in combination with pressure sensitivity, depending on whether the "Use pressure"
button is also toggled.
Thinning
Thinning is a way to modify the width of the calligraphy stroke dynamically according to
the speed at which the stroke is made. This value enables the calligraphy tool to emulate true
ink flow from a pen or brush. For instance, dragging a stroke at a uniform speed will create a
mostly uniform stroke width, while increasing speed will decrease width, and decreasing
speed will increase width (to a degree). The higher the thinning value is, the more the stroke
will be thinned.
Some examples are shown below. Notice that a negative thinning results in a thicking. When
set to 0.0, the line keeps its width with uniformity.
Angle
The Angle setting is used to emulate a stylus type of writing instrument. Angle will affect
the direction at which the stroke creates its thinnest part, just like a calligraphy pen. Values
can be set from -90° to 90°. When set to 0, the hair line is horizontal; to 90, vertical.
Tilt to angle
When activated, Angle is modified relatively to tilt of the tablet pen.

Fixation
Fixation changes the way the Angle width follows the calligraphic path. When set to 0.0,
Angle is set always perpendicularly to the path so that the width looks nearly the same all
along the path (as if the stylus were rotated constantly in the direction of the stroke). When
set to 1.0, Angle is set to adjust to stroke direction most strictly (as if the stylus were kept
exactly in the same direction at all times as a machine might be able to do). A setting of a
little less than 1.0 (such as 0.9) will most closely follow natural hand movement, like using a
real stylus.
Caps
Caps determines how the line ends. At 0, the end caps will be drawn flat. Increasing the
value will create elliptical end caps, and the higher the value the longer the ellipses will be.
The max value is 5.00.
Tremor
Tremor affects jitteriness of the stroke. It can be set from 0.0 to 1.0. When set to 0, the line
is the most regular.
Wiggle
Wiggle is a kind of randomization on drawn curves, making a sort of "bumpy" stroke. It

generates these curves or "bumps" regularly, and can help to draw some nice typographic
shapes, though the result is hardly predictable.
Mass
Mass affects how quickly the stroke follows the cursor. A heavier mass makes the stroke
slower and increases smoothness or regularity of the stroke. Values can be set from 0.0 to
1.0. When set to 0.0 the path just follows the mouse as normal. When set to 1.0, the drawing
of the stroke is very slow.
Default
Default resets all Calligraphy Tool Controls settings to defaults as defined in Preferences.
Drawing
Adding a New Stroke to a Calligraphy Object
Press Shift to add a new calligraphic line to those that are selected, keeping all strokes
together as a single object.
Engraving
Tracking a Shape
One of the most common operations in line engraving is hatching (or sometimes cross-
hatching when several hatching grids cross): filling a space with many parallel straight or
variously curved lines (usually of varying width to represent a gradual shading). You could
try to achieve a similar effect with e.g. path interpolation (blending), but it is rather
cumbersome and limited; manual drawing of hatch lines, on the other hand, is tedious and
nearly impossible to do uniformly. Now Inkscape provides "assisted hatching" by tracking a
guide path, allowing you to hatch quickly and uniformly and at the same time giving you
sufficient manual control over the process.
First, select the guide path that you will track. It may be another calligraphic stroke, any
path or shape, or even a letter of a text object. Then switch to Calligraphic pen, select the
desired parameters (line width, angle, fixation etc.) and, before starting to draw, press Ctrl.
You will see a gray track circle centered at your mouse pointer and touching the closest
point on the selected guide path. (If you have no guide path selected, a statusbar message
will tell you to select it.)
The Now move your mouse close to the guide path, so that the track circle radius is equal to
the desired spacing of your hatch pattern, and start drawing along the guide path. At that
moment, the radius of the circle gets locked; now the circle slides along the guide path - and
the actual stroke is drawn by the center of the tracking circle, not by your mouse point. As a
result, you are getting a smooth stroke going parallel to the guide path and always at the
same distance from it.
When the stroke is ready, release your mouse button (or lift your tablet pen) but do not let go
of Ctrl because, as long as you have it pressed, the tool remembers the hatch spacing you set
when you started drawing. Now, you have just created a new stroke and, as usual with
Inkscape tools, it gets selected instead of what was selected before. In our case, this means
that the newly drawn stroke itself becomes the new guide path. Next, you can draw a second
stroke along the first one, then a third one along the second, etc. Eventually you can fill any
desired space with uniform hatching.
Alternatively, if you uncheck "Select new path" in the Calligraphy tool preferences, newly
created strokes will not be selected, so your original guide path will be kept selected. In this
mode, Inkscape will increase the tracking distance after each created stroke so that you can
create uniformly spaced hatching by tracking a single guide path.
The attachment to the guide path is not absolute. If you stray your mouse pointer far enough
from the guide path, you will be able to tear it off (the track circle turns from green to red)
and move freely. This is intentional; this feature allows you, for example, to continue
drawing a stroke past the end of a guide stroke, thus making your hatching cover a wider
area than the initial guide path. Special care is taken to make such tearing off as smooth as
possible and to suppress violent jerks, but this is not always possible; the general advice is to
not try to hatch too fast. If jerking and unintended tearoffs still bother you, try increasing the
Mass parameter.
Also, special code is in place to prevent flipovers - accidental jumps to the other side of the
guide path. Brief flipovers are suppressed, but if you intentionally go over to the other side
and stay there, eventually Inkscape will obey and your tracking stroke will also flip over to
follow you.
Tracking a guide also allows some slight feedback by gradually changing the tracking
distance in response to your drawing behavior. Thus, if you're consistently trying to draw
closer or farther from the guide than the current tracking distance, the distance will
correspondingly decrease or increase, so you will get a hatching that is slightly spacing in or
out. (The effect is very slight, however, so as not to become a nuisance.) Also, note that since
tracking follows the edge of the stroke, strokes of varying width (such as those tracing
background, see below) will result in gradual bending of the hatching pattern as you proceed
Engraving
Combined with the Ctrl key, the Calligraphy Tool is able to simulate the ancient art of line
engraving. Traditional engraving is a very labour-intensive process, and while for a long time
it was the only practical way of reproducing lifelike images in black-and-white print, about a
century ago it was almost completely displaced by automatic halftone screens in industrial
process. However, line engravings have their characteristic charm, and are often still used for
certain art applications.
Bucket Fill Tool

The Bucket Fill Tool is simple - it fills in unfilled areas with color. Being a vector tool, however,
Inkscape's Paint Bucket actually creates a new path that "fills in" the area in which you clicked.
It is important to note that the tool's operation perceptual, not geometric. That is, when looking for the
boundaries around the point you clicked, it takes for such boundaries any visible color changes. This
means that filling will stop at gradients, blurs, and even the color boundaries in imported bitmaps, but
will ignore any paths or other objects that are fully (or almost fully) transparent or for any other reason do
not stand out from the background. In short, it will work exactly as if you were filling a rasterized
version of your image in a bitmap editor like Photoshop or GIMP - but will give you a vector object to
work with.
Internally, the tool works by performing a bitmap-based flood fill on a rendered version of the visible
canvas, then tracing the resulting fill using potrace and placing the traced path into the document.
It places the rendered path onto the current layer, so you can have a layer on top (for example, "Inks")
and select the layer below ("Colors") and do the fills so that they always appear below the Inks.
Because the tool operates in this way, you can, for example, scan a pencil sketch, import the bitmap into
Inkscape, and quickly fill all its cells with colors without tracing the bitmap first. This is a very
convenient and interactive way of digitizing your paper drawings, making the traditional bitmap tracing
unnecessary in many cases.
The resolution of the bitmap image used to perform the trace is dependent upon your current zoom level
-- the more 'zoomed in' to an area that you are, the higher the resolution of the bitmap-based flood fill. So,
if you have a fill that is too imprecise, has rough corners, or doesn't go where it is supposed to go, just
undo it (CTRL + z ), 'zoom in' closer and repeat filling from the same point. Conversely, if the fill leaks
out through a small gap, zoom out to make the gap less visible and fill again (or use the auto gap closing
parameter - see below).
How to use
The Paint Bucket Tool works fairly intuitively: click in any area bounded on all sides and it will fill it
with color - or, in reality, a path which can be filled and adjusted like any arbitrary path.
Style
Like all object-creating tools, the Paint Bucket may use the last-set style for the objects it
creates (this is the default), or it can use its own fixed style. You can switch between these
modes on this tool's page in Inkscape Preferences (Ctrl+Shift+P). As in all other tools, the
style swatch on the far right of the Controls Bar shows the style that will be used for the
next fill object you create.
Controls
In the Tool Controls bar: Paint Bucket's perceptual fill can use either all visible colors or
specific color channels. Using the Fill by drop-down list, you can restrict the fill algorithm
to one the following channels:
Red
Green
Blue
Hue
Saturation
Lightness
Alpha
The Threshold (in per cent units) controls how large the color difference must be at a point
(compared to the initial click point) to stop the fill. 'Zero tolerance' means only an area which
is strictly the same color will be filled; the larger the tolerance, the easier it will be for the fill
to leak into adjacent different-color areas. The default value is 10%.
Using the Grow/shrink by parameter, you can control the amount of inset/outset to be
applied to the created fill path. Setting a positive outset causes fill paths to be larger than the
filled bitmap area (good for eliminating anti-aliasing errors), while setting a negative outset
causes the path to be smaller. This works much the same as the Outset and Inset path
commands, except it's done automatically after every fill.
With the Close gaps parameter, you can make the Paint Bucket tool ignore any gaps in the
area boundaries that would normally cause the fill to spill out of the desired area. There are
four settings to auto gap:
None
Small (close gaps up to 2 pixels in size)
Medium (4 pixels)
Large (6 pixels)
Note : setting this parameter to anything other than None may slow down Inkscape
noticeably while filling large areas.
Hotkeys
The tool's shortcuts are:
Single click performs filling from the click point.
Shift+click performs filling from the click point and then unions the resulting path with the
selected path. This way, if your first attempt did not fill in all of the desired area, you can
Shift+click the remaining corner to fill it in separately and combine the result with the result of the
previous fill.
Ctrl+click on an object simply changes that object's fill to the current fill color of the tool, and
Shift+Ctrl+click changes the stroke to the current stroke color.
Click+drag performs filling from all of the points that you pass while dragging (you will see your
path visualized by a red line). From each point, the fill spreads to its neighbours with the colors
similar to that point - in other words, it's like clicking with this tool at each point of the drag path
and joining the results. This lets you easily fill an area occupied by a gradient or blur - just drag
from the darkest to the lightest points in the area you want to fill.
Alt+click and drag works similarly to simple drag, except from each point of the drag path, the fill
spreads to the neighbours (if any) with the colors similar to the initial point (the point where you
started the drag). This lets you fill a series of similarly-colored yet separated areas (for example,
multiple cells in a cartoon) by starting the drag in one of those areas, and Alt+dragging the tool
through all the other areas.
Text tool
The Text Tool makes it possible to write text in an SVG drawing.
How to use
To invoke the tool, press Shift + Ctrl + T. Alternatively there is a Text menu which allows you to
change the aspect of the characters or their behavior with respect to other elements of the drawing. Text
Tool uses several short cut keys to modify typographic elements.
There are two ways to use the Text Tool :
1. Select the Text Tool and click on the canvas to create a simple line field. It will grow with the
written text.
2. Click and drag to draw a rectangle this becomes a text box : this frame will contain the text and
will be the limit for the word wrapping. The text box will not grow with the text, so if there is too
much text for the frame, some letters will simply not be displayed. This frame can be manually
resized by dragging the handle at the bottom right corner. The Flow into Frame command of the
Text menu makes it easy to use any shape as a text container.
Special Characters
Ctrl + Space inserts on non-breaking space
Ctrl U allows to use Unicode encodings within the document. To find a Unicode value refer to a
Unicode character map program or reference.
To insert an arbitrary Unicode character, type Ctrl + U, then the hexadecimal code, then
Enter. For example, type Ctrl U 2 0 1 4 Enter for an em-dash; Ctrl + U a 9 + Enter for a
copyright sign.
To stay in Unicode mode after inserting the character, press Space instead of Enter
Press Esc or another Ctrl U to cancel Unicode mode without inserting the character.
Tips
If you're not sure if all your text is visible in the frame, use the Text and Font window to read it all.
Connector Tool
The Connector tool (Ctrl+F2 or the o key) draws lines between objects that stay connected to other
objects as they are manipulated. Any object may be marked as an object to avoid, which causes
connectors to automatically route around the object. This is helpful for creating technical illustrations like
flowcharts.
How to Use
Connecting
A new connector can be drawn by clicking and dragging from any point on the canvas.
Connectors can also be created with two clicks, rather than click-and-drag, if this is
preferred. In this case, click once on an empty point on the canvas to begin drawing the
connector, then move the mouse to the new connector's target point and then click again to
finalize the connector. Single clicking on a canvas object selects/deselects that object, just as
with other tools. Usually connectors are drawn from an existing object:
Connection point handles are shown while the mouse cursor is hovering over a non-
connector object in the connector tool. Currently they are shown only at the center of objects.
When creating a connector, if the connector is started or ended over a connection point then
the connector will be attached to that object. From then on the connector will be
automatically rerouted whenever the attached object is moved.
Connectors attached to objects are currently drawn to the bounding box of those objects. It
is planned that they will be drawn instead to the edges of objects.
The connector is finalized, when the mouse is released:
The Make connectors avoid selected objects button marks all objects in the selection as
"avoided", causing all current and future connectors to automatically avoid these objects.
The Make connectors ignore selected objects button marks all objects in the selection as
"ignored", causing all current and future connectors to completely ignore these objects. This
is the default for all canvas items, i.e., no objects are automatically routed around by default.
Here the middle object is avoided:
By default, the Connector tool will not attach connectors to text objects. A checkbox in the
Connector preferences controls this setting.
Rerouting
A selected connector shows two endpoint handles. By clicking and dragging these, the
connector can be rerouted and attached/detached from objects.
Connectors moved as part of a selection will stay attached to other objects in the selection,
rather than becoming detached from them.
Arranging
The margins around avoided shapes used for autorouting connectors can be adjusted via
the "Spacing" control on the controls bar.
The Remove Overlaps button to move the selected objects enough that they don't overlap
each other. A minimum spacing between the boundaries of objects can be specified.
Together with the automatic layout tool, described above, this should be a significant
addition to Inkscape's usability for diagramming. Removing overlaps is different from the
"Unclump" button in that the former is completely deterministic and guarantees removing
overlaps on the first application, but is not concerned with visual perceptive distances
between objects. Unclumping, on the other hand, attempts to equalize perceptive distances
between objects and can be applied repeatedly for gradual effect.
Automatic Diagram Layout: this function is available in the Align and Distribute dialog
and performs automatic layout of diagrams involving a network of shapes and connectors.
Edges are treated as if they are springs such that the distance between nodes will be
proportional to the path length — number of connectors — between them. Disconnected
components (where not every shape is connected) will be arranged around the circumference
of a circle.
Gradients
The Gradient Tool allows the progressive passage of one color to another (or multiple others) in an
object. It can be used on any shape, closed or opened, as a fill or a stroke (applied separately). Any
number of selected objects can simultaneously display handles and direction lines for the linear and
radial gradients in their fills or strokes. You can drag these handles directly in the drawing, to
interactively adjust gradient positions.
The gradient can be set in the Fill and in the Stroke Paint dialog to replace of any other type of coloration.
How to use
To invoke, either click the Gradient Tool icon or press Ctrl +F1.
Types of gradients
There are two types of gradients:
1. Linear gradients transition the color change from one point to another in a straight line. Just click
where the gradient should begin, hold and drag, and release where it should end. Two handles
now appear: the handle of the beginning is square and the end is a circle. The two handles can now
be used to change the color (select each one and choose the color for it from the fill and stroke
dialog) or move and change the gradient direction.
2. Radial gradients work as colored circles with the color transition beginning at the center. Three
handles are available : the square one is the center of the gradient, and the circle ones change the
radius of the gradient. When the radius is the same for both circle handle, the gradient is perfectly
circular. To move the placement of a radial gradient in the object, drag the square handle.
Once a gradient is created it is automatically saved in the drop-down list of the Gradient Tool Options bar
so that it can be easily reused on other shapes.
More colors
To have more than two colors on a gradient, just double-click on the gradient base path to make a new
handle (stop) appear.
By default first and last color stops have fill color that matches original flat color fill of the object, but
opacity drops from 100% to 0% accordingly. All new color stops in between will inherit original fill
color, but have various opacity depending on position of each color stops on the gradient line (i.e.
percentage of the radius).
Click in the swatch to set the color. You can move this handle to adjust the position of this stop. To
delete a stop, just press the Backspace key.
Selecting multiple stops
More than one gradient stop can be selected at a time. Shortcuts for working with multiple stop
selections are generally modeled on the Node tool.
Add a stop to the selected stops by Shift+click.

Press Ctrl+A to select all stops in the selected objects.
Shift+drag around stops to add them to selection.
Multiple selected stops:
Can be moved together by mouse drag or by arrow keys. For example, creating a linear gradient,
then press Ctrl+A to select all stops and use arrow keys to move the entire gradient as a whole.
Can be deleted at the same time by pressing Del.
An always up-to-date description of the current handle selection is provided in the statusbar in the
Gradient tool, including the number of selected handles (and the type of the single selected handle), as
well as the total number of handles and selected objects.
Editing intermediate stops
Intermediate stops in gradients can be added, deleted, and edited right on canvas.
Stops can be added by double clicking or by Ctrl+Alt+Click on the gradient line. Also, you can drag-
and-drop a color from the palette onto the gradient line to create a new stop with this color. Dropping a
color on an existing stop changes the color of that stop.
When two or more adjacent stops are selected, pressing Ins adds stops in the middles of all selected stop
intervals.
Intermediate stops can be mouse-dragged or moved by arrow keys along their gradient line, within the
limits of the adjacent unselected stops (or end handles).
Dragging with Ctrl moves the selected stops snapping them to 1/10 fractions of the available
range.
Dragging with Alt moves the selected stops depending on how close each one is to the stop being
dragged, using a smooth bell-like curve similar to the node sculpting feature in Node tool. This
makes it easy to approximate different gradient profiles; for example, if you have a two-stop
gradient that you want to shape according to a curve profile, select both ends of the gradient, press
Ins a few times to add a number of intermediate nodes, then Alt+drag a node in the middle to
smoothly profile the gradient.
Stops can also be moved by arrow keys with all the regular modifiers (Shift for 10× movement, Alt for
pixel-size movement at the current zoom, Shift+Alt for 10 pixels movement at the current zoom).
Stops can be deleted by Ctrl+Alt+Click on a stop or by the Del key for all the selected stop(s).
When you delete an end stop, the nearest intermediate stop becomes the new end stop of the
gradient (without moving — i.e., the gradient span becomes shorter).
When you delete an end stop and there are no intermediate stops, the object will be painted with a
solid fill taken from the color & opacity of the remaining stop.
Pressing Ctrl+L with some intermediate stops selected attempts to simplify the selected portion of the
gradient, removing those stops that can be removed without too much change in the way the gradient
looks. In particular, new stops created by double-clicking or pressing Ins initially do not change the
appearance of the gradient, so if you press Ctrl+L, all redundant stops that weren't moved or repainted
since creation will be deleted.
Automatic duplication of gradients
When copy/pasting or duplicating an object with gradient, it automatically gets a copy of the original
gradient, so modifying it does not affect the source object's gradient anymore .
However, to accommodate the needs of users who rely on sharing the same gradient definition across
objects, this behavior can be optionally suppressed. The Prevent sharing of gradient definitions
checkbox on the Misc tab of Inkscape Preferences is by default checked; if you uncheck it, Inkscape does
not automatically copy gradient definitions for new objects, which means that copy/pasting, duplicating,
pasting style, and explicit assignment of a gradient to an object via the Gradient tool controls results in a
shared gradient definition, so that changing the colors or mid-stop positions of the gradient on one object
(but not changing the coordinates of the end handles) affects all other objects that share the same
definition.
Dropper Tool
The Dropper Tool is used to select an object's fill or stroke color by sampling the color of an area of
the canvas. The color selected is the single point at the center of the cross at the end of the Dropper Tool
icon.
How to Use
Select an object to which you want to apply a new color and press F7 or D to switch to Dropper. Click a
point on the canvas which is the desired color - the fill of the selected object will be changed to the target
color. Shift + Click to apply this color to the stroke.
The shortcut D can be used to toggle (not just switch to) the Dropper tool — much like space is used to
toggle the Selector Tool. That is, pressing D a second time switches back to the tool used before.
Alpha Settings
The toolbar has only two options:
The left icon toggles picking the alpha channel. The right icon toggles setting the alpha channel.
Suppose you have an object selected and, using Dropper, click on an object which has blue transparent
fill (#389bff7f).
If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is off, the selected object will get the fill color #9ccdffff (i.e. faded-out blue)
and opaque:
If the "Pick alpha" checkbox is on, but "Set alpha" is off, the selected object will get the fill color
#389bffff (bright blue) and opaque:
If both "Pick alpha" and "Set alpha" are on, the selected object will get the fill color #389bff7f (pale blue)
and half-transparent, i.e. fully match the fill style of the object from which the color was inherited:
Note that in no situation can Dropper change the master opacity of the selected object(s) (only the
fill/stroke opacity), although it can pick it just as it does any other kind of opacity.
Select Average Color
There are cases also, when you might want to apply an average color of an area - for example, an object
with gradient fill.
With an object selected, click and drag the Dropper Tool from the central point of an area with the
average color you want to pick:
The selected object will be filled with the averaged color value of the dropper selection.
The same can be done for stroke by Shift + Click + Drag:
And you get:
Hotkeys
Alt+Click picks the inverse of the color selected by the Dropper Tool (also works with averaged color
selections and applying to target object borders).
Tips
You can pick a color from the target object itself. You can do this, for example, to set the stroke fill the
same as the object fill.
Path modification Effects

Modify Path Effects work on a selection of any number of paths and modify them in various ways
without creating new paths or deleting existing ones.
Available effects
Envelope and Perspective
Maps bounding box of a path to quadrilateral to achieve effect of a perspective. These two
effects are quite similar, but differ in level of natural look of the desired effect.
Here is how to use it:
1. Draw your to-be-distorted path

2. Draw and position a four node path (envelope frame).
3. Place the to-be-distorted path inside/above the envelope frame.
4. Select the path you wish to distort first and then add to selection the envelope frame.
The original position of the four nodes is considered to be clockwise around the
bounding box of the path to distort beginning in the upper left corner.
5. Apply the effect.
Here is the difference:
Add Nodes
Adds nodes to the selected paths. Each segment of the selected path is subdivided into ceil
(Length/Max) equal length segments. Lengths are measured in SVG User Units calculated
from the path data and do not take into account any transforms.
Parameters for example below:
Division method: by number of segments

Maximum segment length (px): 5
Number of segments: 2
Color Markers to Match Stroke
Currently available SVG 1.1 Full specification doesn't allow using the same color for the
path and its markers. This extension is a temporary workaround to fix that (until the new
improved SVG specification is out). Just change the stroke color of your path and call this
effect to recolor its markers to match.
Flatten Beziers
Flattens paths in the current selection, approximating each path with a polyline whose
segments meet the specified criteria for flatness. Lower flatness values make a smoother line.
Flatness:10
Fractalize
Replaces each segment of the selected path by a crooked line, subdivided to the given depth,
with randomly displaced nodes.
Available options are:
Subdivisions: 6
Smoothness: 4.0
Jitter nodes
Randomly shifts nodes (and, optionally, node handles)
Maximum Displacement in X: 50.0

Maximum Displacement in Y: 50.0
Shift nodes: checked
Shift node handles: checked
Use normal distribution: checked
Straighten Segments
Straightens curved segment to a user defined level (in percents), using of two behaviours (1
stands for rounded corners, 2 stands for less rounded corners).
Percent:50
Behavior: 1
Whirl
Twists the selected paths around the specified center point.
Parameters for an example below:
Amount of whirl: 15
Rotation is clockwise: checked
Styling Text
Many modifications can be done to Text. Some are available in Text Option Bar, but some aren't. Here
is a little overview of the most useful options.
Text Selection
Ctrl with arrows left and right : moves the beam word by word
Shift with arrows left and right : selecting glyph by glyph

Ctrl Shift with arrows left and right : selection by words
Double click : select the word
Triple click : select the line
Shift + Home : select from the beginning of the line
Shift + End : select until the end of the line
Ctrl + Shift +Home : select from the beginning of the text
Ctrl + Shift + End : select until the end of the text
Text Aspect
The Tool Controls Bar provides several options such as :
Font families
Font size
Bold style
Oblique/Italic style
Alignment
Hot Keys
Ctrl +B and Ctrl + I applies bold and italic to the selected text.
Kerning : Alt with arrows left and right increase or decrease the space between caracters at the
end or beginning ofthe selection. You can also use Alt + >, Alt <, Shift +Alt + >, or Shift + Alt
+ < to change the letter spacing more significantly. Use the Remove manual kerns menu of the
Text menu if your are not satisfied with it.
Pressing Alt + [, Alt +] rotates precisely the letters; Ctrl + [, Ctrl + ] do 90° rotation at once.
Alt arrows up and down change the vertical position of the selected text relatively to the baseline.
Text Effects
Writing text often requires the repetition of the same operations. The Effect > Text menu can do some of
them automatically.
Lorem Ipsum Example

In the example below a standard latin text taken from Cicero is insterted into a text frame. This is useful
in cases when a text placeholder is required (e.g. webdesign).
Replace Text
Replace Text simply replaces the text written in the first field of the dialog by the text written in the
second one.
Sentence Case
Sentence Case replaces lower case characters by capitals ine the beginning of every sentence.
Title Case
Capitalizes first letter of each word.
UPPER CASE
Capitalizes all letters.
fLIP cASE
Reverses letter case, so that all capitals become lower case, and all lower case letters become upper case
letters.
lower case
All the letters become lower case.
rANdOm CasE
Arbitrarily toggles letter case in the whole text.
Text and Paths

Text and path can be complementary elements that work together. Some options of the Text menu are
very interesting.
Put on Path / Remove from Path

Inkscape has support for the SVG element <textPath>. That allows putting a text on a path so that it
follows its shape. Both text and path remain fully editable (including kerns and letterspacing in text).
Select the path and the text and use Text->Put on Path. When you move the path, its attached text moves
with it; however, you can move the text away from its path or transform it without losing the link. The
Text->Remove from Path command converts a text-on-path into a regular text object.
Flow into Frame / Unflow from Frame

The Flow into frame Alt+W command of the Text menu takes any selected text and puts it into the
selected shape. Word-wrapping is automatically done so that the text fits the shape as precisely as
possible. Manual adjustment can still be done on the text after this. To separate the text from the path,
just use Unflow or press Shift+Alt+ W.
Copy, Clone and Duplicate

Introduction
The artist may have need, at some point in his work, to replicate an object he has created for any number
of purposes. Possibly he is populating a scene with bubbles or blades of grass which will all look exactly
alike, or else he may want to create a very similar object which has some minor modifications.
Fortunately, Inkscape offers several tools to replicate objects. Each one has advantages in disadvantages,
of course, which will be defined also by the purpose of the replicant object.
A strict copy of an object repeats the object on screen and within the xml code, and the new object is
entirely separate from the original. This means that changes can be made to the replicant indifferently to
the original, and changes made to the original do not affect the replicant either. This is done with either
the Copy or Duplicate commands.
A clone is merely a repetition of the original on screen and in the code. Most modifications made to the
original, like fill and transparency, are transferred to the replicant as well, and only a few modifications,
such as transform and position, may be made to the replicant directly (some of these only under certain
circumstances). Clones are created with the Clone command.
How to Use
Copy
The Copy command ( Ctrl + C or Edit > Copy or the command bar button) makes an exact copy of the
selection in Inkscape's memory; the Paste command ( Ctrl + V or Edit > Paste or the command bar
button) puts an exact copy under the cursor. The last selection to be copied can be pasted an indefinite
number of times. It is also possible to paste the object wherever it is needed, for instance on an other
layer, without the trouble of having to reposition the copy after its creation.
Duplicate
The Duplicate command ( Ctrl + D or Edit > Duplicate ) allows you to copy and paste a selection
automatically with one command. The new object or selection is in exactly the same position as the
original and is selected (instead of the original), ready for further manipulation.
Clone
The Clone command ( Alt + D or Edit > Clone ) allows you to create a copy of the selection that is linked
to the original, also known as its parent. The clone's shape, style (fill and stroke, transparency) and
dimensions are linked to its parent. Thus, editing the parent's transparency (etc.) will also affect the
clone's transparency.
You can clone multiple object by grouping them first.
A clone can be a parent to another clone. Any modifications to the original will affect all clones down the
hierarchy of clones.
The fill and stroke paint of a clone is the same as its parent's unless the parent has "Unset paint" activated
for either in the Fill and Stroke dialog. Unsetting fill will make the parent's fill black as well as the
clone's, but the clone's fill can then be reset while the parent's cannot; unsetting stroke paint will make the
stroke disappear so that the clone's stroke and stroke paint can be adjusted while the parent's cannot (it
will remain invisible unless paint is reset for the parent).
Unlink clone
Unlink clone ( Alt + Shift + D or Edit > Clone > Unlink clone ) separates a clone definitively from its
parent, effectively making it only a copy. After that you can apply changes to the parent without changing
the copy.
Select original
Use Select original ( Shift + D or Edit > Clone > Select original ) to find the parent of a selected clone.
This is very useful when you have lost your parent.
Clipping paths and masks

Introduction
Clip paths, masks, and patterns are greatly useful additions to an artist or designers' tool set. A common
property that all three share is the concept of boundaries. Clip paths and masks bound the contents of the
items they contain, whereas patterns are only visible inside the bounds of the object they are applied to
(in all three cases cropping visibility).
These methods do not delete parts of your objects, they merely tell the SVG renderer not to display them.
This non-destructive editing makes it so that we can also release objects from from their bounded areas as
well.
There are benefits to working with clip paths or masks combined with either individual or grouped
objects.
Use of patterns fills is addressed in a dedicated chapter.
Clipping
The clip function in Inkscape allows an object or a group of objects to be clipped (cropped) so that only
parts of the elements are visible. Clipping can be applied to any object (including groups, layers, bitmaps,
etc.)
The easiest way to understand clipping is to see it in action. Take the following assortment of objects:
Now, place another object on top of all the others. This is what we are using for our clipping object. Note
that the Z-order of the clipping object is important, as the default behavior in Inkscape takes the top-most
object as the clipping object. Also note that the style (fill, stroke, opacity etc.) of the object is irrelevant,
all that is used when clipping is the shape of the object.
The next step is to select all the objects that you want clipped and the clipping object. Then in the menus,
go to Object > Clip > Set. The result is:
Since this is all non-destructive editing, it means that we can also release objects from a clip. Do this by
selecting the object that you wish to release, and in the menus go to Object > Clip > Release. In the
following example the blue star object was selected, and the clip was released:
So the purple clipping object has now returned, and the blue star object is no longer clipped. Note that the
other two objects are still clipped, as the clip was applied to 3 seperate objects. These clips still apply and
can be released if needed. Because clipping paths can be applied to any object, if you wanted to treat the
3 objects as a whole, you would group them, then apply the clip to the group.
Clipping can be done on any object, even objects that have had filters applied to them. Below is an
example of using clipping to create a bubble effect on a circle:
A clip can also be done on bitmaps that are embedded into or linked from an SVG:
Masking
Like clip paths, masks allows an object or a group of objects to be visually cropped. The difference is that
the mask's black or transparent areas become fully transparent in the masked object; mask's opaque white
areas become fully opaque; and all intermediate colors translate into intermediate levels of opacity in the
masked object. This allows you to apply, for example, arbitrary transparency gradients to objects.
In the following example you will see both the masks and the items they're applied to. As you'll notice,
masks offer the ability for you to texture objects, give them depth, and other things that clip paths can't
provide:
Introduction to Positionning
Every new object is placed at a higher level of z-order. It is impossible to have two or more objects at
the same level. If there is a need to change the stack, use some Object menu entries or Selector Tool F1
options.
If layers are defined, the stack changes occur in the layer.
When the Selector Tool F1 is on, this option appears in the Tool Controls bar.
Raise to Top
Raise to top (Home) command puts any selected object at the top, above all other objects in the drawing.
SVG places any newly created object at top. However it is impossible to have 2 objects at the same stack-
level. Some shapes or paths may be masked by these new objects.
Lower to Bottom
Lower to Bottom puts all selected objects at the bottom, below all other objects of the drawing.
Raise
The Raise (PgUp) command changes the stack of any selected object so that its z-order is just changed
by one level and goes over only one other.
Lower
The Lower (PgDn) command changes the stack of any selected object so that its z-order is just changed
by one level and goes below one other.
Align and Distribute

Align and Distribute moves multiple selected objects to the same axis and distributes them equally
relative to a selected anchor object. The Align and Distribute dialog offers many ways of applying these
functions to object selections.
How to Use
The Align and Distribute dialog can be called by pressing Shift+Ctrl+A, selecting Object > Align and
Distribute, or clicking the icon on the Toolbar:
Make sure your objects are selected. Depending on which object you wish to have as the anchor and
which relative to setting you have selected, order of selection will be important.
"Relative to"
Objects can be aligned and distributed relative to:
the last or first selected

the biggest or smallest item
the page
the drawing (all objects within the document)
the selection of objects
Align
To align selected objects, click one of the align icons:
Align right sides of objects to left side of anchor

Align left sides
Center on vertical axis
Align right sides
Align left sides of objects to right side of anchor
Align baseline anchors of text vertically
Align bottoms ob objects to top of anchor
Align tops
Center on horizontal axis
Align bottoms
Align tops of objects to bottom of anchor
Align baseline anchors of texts horizontally
Distribute
To distribute selected objects, click one of the distribute icons:
Distribute left sides equidistanly

Distribute centers equidistanly horizontally
Distribute right sides equidistanly
Make horizontal gaps between objects equal
Distribute baseline anchors of text horizontally
Distribute tops euidistanly
Distribute centers equidistanly vertically
Distribute bottoms equidistanly
Make vertical gaps between objects equal
Distribute baseline anchors of text vertically
Randomize centers in both dimensions
Unclump objects ; try to equalize edge-to-edge distances
Remove overlaps
You can also define:
Minimum horizontal gaps between objects,

Mimimum vertical gaps,
Move objects as little as possible so that their bounding boxes do not overlap
Connector network layout
If you are using the connector tool and need to distribute the connected objects, use this button to
rearrange the selected connectors.
Nodes
There are 4 buttons to organize nodes in path. Select the nodes with Node Tool and click one of the node
align buttons:
Align selected nodes horizontally

Align selected nodes vertically
Distribute selected nodes horizontally
Distribute selected nodes vertically
Layers
Layers are a type of object group within an SVG document. As the name indicates, they are like stacked
slices of the image which can be stacked, arranged, added and removed. In addition, layers can be locked
and made invisible to ease editing of objects within other layers of the document.
Layers can be very useful for several purposes:
Arranging sets of objects by z-order (or stacking);

Grouping objects which should be made visible/invisible or locked/unlocked together;
Setting background layers which are visible but not selectable;
etc (limited only by your imagination)
The Layers Widget on the Status Bar

The quickest and easiest way to work with layers is to use the layers widget on the statusbar.
Once you have created multiple layers in your drawing, you can select a layer easily from the combo
box. You can also hide / unhide or lock / unlock the current layer from this widget.
The Layers Dialog
The Layers dialog controls all layer functions - adding new layers, renaming, deleting, arranging,
toggling visibility and edit-locking, and setting Blend mode and opacity.
Blend Mode and Opacity

You can choose to apply a Blend mode to layers, which makes all objects in a layer blend together as if
they were one object - i.e., the two objects within the same layer will not blend with each other when
layer blend modes are used. The available modes are the common Multiply, Screen, Darken, and
Lighten.
Opacity for an entire layer operates in a similar manner - objects within the layer have their opacity set as
if they were a single object, so that one will not show through the others. Only objects from layers
beneath will show through the affected layers.
How to Use
To open the Layers dialog, press Ctrl+Shft+L or select Layer>Layers.
Adding Layers
New documents created by Inkscape using the default template have only one layer. It is
simple to create new layers which can be used right away.
To create a new layer, click "Create a new layer" on the Layers dialog.
Note : Although it is possible to have the same name for multiple layers (since each is given
a different ID automatically), this is not the SVG standard. It is good practice to name each
layer differently.
Renaming Layer
To rename a layer, double-click on the layer name in the Layers dialog or right-click the
layer and select Rename Layer.
Selecting Layers
To select a layer (in order to make it active), simply click on the layer once in the Layers
dialog or select it from the layers widget on the status bar.
Moving a Selection Between Layers
To move the current selection to the previous or next layer press Shift+PgUp or
Shift+PgDn .
Moving Layers
To raise a layer one level press Shift+Ctrl+PgUp or click the "raise the current layer" arrow
in the Layers dialog.
To lower a layer one level press Ctrl or click the "lower the current layer" arrow in
the Layers
To raise a layer to the top press Shift+Ctrl+Home or click the "raise the current layer to the
top" arrow in the Layers dialog.
To lower a layer to the bottom press Shift+Ctrl+End or click the "lower the curent layer to
the bottom" arrow in the Layers dialog.
Deleting Layers
To delete a layer, it must be selected. Click the "delete the current layer" button in the Layers
dialog.
Locking Layers
To lock or unlock layers, click on the lock icon to the left of the layer name in the Layers
dialog or the status bar. The icon changes to reflect the current edit-lock status.
Hiding Layers
To make a layer invisible or visible, click on the eye icon to the left of the layer name in the
Layers dialog or the status bar. The icon changes to reflect the current visibility status.
Blend Mode
To change the blend mode, click on the blend mode dropdown in the Layers dialog and
select a new mode.
Opacity
To change the opacity of a layer, move the opacity slider in the Layers dialog to the right or
left.
Grouping
Sometimes several objects need to be manipulated together in a group rather than separately. For
example, if you want to keep the position of several objects relative to each other but still be able to grab
and move those objects around the canvas quickly and easily. You might also want to adjust one setting
for several objects at the same time, such as fill or transparency.
A group is treated as a single object, and for most operations it can be manipulated as such. For example,
groups can be "stacked", meaning that you can create groups made of groups or groups other objects.
(This can be helpful, but it can also be very confusing if it becomes complicated.)
Groups cannot, however, be created between groups; in other words, you cannot select one object from
two groups and create a new group without destroying or modifying the original groups.
How to Use
Creating and Releasing Groups
Groups are created by selecting multiple objects and pressing Ctrl+G or clicking the Group
button on the Commands Bar.
Groups are release by selecting the group and pressing Shift+Ctrl+G or clicking the
Ungroup button on the Commands Bar.
Working with Objects in a Group
Individual objects within a group can be manipulated as normal by "entering" the group.
To enter a group, double-click the group. You may then select any object in the group
individually to work with it.
Selecting Objects within a Group (from outside the group)
Objects may be selected from within groups for manipulation without entering or releasing
the groups. This is very useful if you need to quickly change only one member of a group,
yet leave the group intact.
To select an object within a group without entering that group, press Ctrl and left-click the
object.
To select multiple objects within groups (they can exist withing various groups), press
Shft+Ctrl and left-click the objects.
Adding Objects to a Group
In order to add objects to a group, you can use several methods, each having its own benefits
and drawbacks:
1. Select the group, ungroup, add the object to the selection, then regroup.
2. Enter the group and draw a new object.
3. Copy or cut the object from the canvas, enter the group, paste the object.
Introduction to Styling
Objects in SVG can have various types of styles applied to them, and Inkscape offers multiple
approaches to applying these styles. Unfortunately, this makes the discussion of styling objects fairly
complex. This chapter aims to simplify the discussion as much as possible while revealing the
possibilities of Inkscape and SVG drawings. Accordingly, this introduction will focus on explaining the
types of object styling and a little bit about alternative ways of applying styles.
Fill
Fill is the color or pattern applied within the path borders of an SVG object. Each SVG object has some
kind of fill (except diagram connectors).
Note : Even bezier and freehand lines have fill, although by default it is set to transparent.
There are three basic types of fill:
Solid Fills - invariant color fills the object. This color can have an opacity setting from 0 to 100 (0
being completely transparent, 100 being completely opaque).
Gradient Fills - are a combination of two or more colors (or transparencies). A gradient begins
with the first color and blends smoothly into the next, etc. Gradients can either be linear or
circular.
Pattern Fills - are comprised of repeating images which can be selected from a preset or defined
by the user. They can be either paths and shapes or bitmaps.
In addition, the fill can be set either to render or not render at any place where the object crosses over
itself with the even-odd or non-zero settings.
Stroke Paint
Stroke Paint is the color or pattern applied to an SVG object's stroke.
Stroke Paint settings are basically the same as fill in that they consist of solid colors, gradients or
patterns. Stroke Paint cannot be set to even-odd - it always renders when it crosses over itself.
Stroke Style
Stroke Style is a group of settings affecting the geometric properties of an object's stroke, such as width,
decorative markers, dashing, etc.
Alternate Application Methods for Styles

Apart from selecting style types individually from the dialogs, there are several ways to paste copied
styles by keystroke:
Copy Styles from Other Objects
If you want to copy styles from one object to another, you can do so easily by copying the
object as normal (press Ctrl+C) and then paste the style by pressing Shft+Ctrl+V.
Copy Dimensions from Other Objects
There are six options for copying dimensions from one object to a new object. They are
found in Edit > Paste Size
Paste Size - paste both the copied height and width to the selected object(s) so that the whole
selection has the same dimensions as the original
Paste Width - paste only the copied width to the selected object(s) so that the whole
selection has the same width as the original
Paste Height - paste only the copied height to the selected object(s) so that the whole
selection has the same height as the original
Paste Size Separately - paste the copied height and width to each selected object
individually (when multiples are selected) so that each separate object within the selection
has the same height and width as the original
Paste Width Separately - paste the copied width to each selected object individually (when
multiples are selected) so that each separate object within the selection has the same width as
the original
Paste Height Separately - paste the copied height to each selected object individually (when
multiples are selected) so that each separate object within the selection has the same height
as the original
Fill and Stroke

The Fill and Stroke Paint panels are found in the Style dialog. The settings contained in these panels are
used to apply color or pattern styles to their respective object elements, and function almost the same for
each. Fill affects the interior part of an object (anything inside the object's path), Stroke Paint affects the
path's stroke following its border.
An interesting point: when stroke paint has partial transparency, the object's fill will show through the
inner half of the stroke paint but not the outer half, since the path stops at the center of the stroke and
bounds the object's fill. This can either make for interesting drawing possibilities or frustrated artists.
This is by SVG specification design.
The fill or stroke paint of an object can be set to:
No Paint
Plain Color
Linear Gradient
Radial Gradient
Pattern
Unset (used mostly for creating clones that are styled independently from their master)
In addition, there are a few settings that can really complicate the ease with which this dialogue might
otherwise be understood:
Even-odd
Non-zero
Blur
Opacity
How to Use
Select one or more objects or groups you want to edit, then call the Fill and Stroke dialog by selecting
Object > Fill and Stroke or by pressing Shift+Ctrl+F.
The following list describes each property setting. (Examples are given using the Fill properties since
they are seen more easily.)
No Paint
No paint or fill is visible in the object or stroke. This means that any visible object behind
the invisible fill will show through it. Though it may seem counterintuitive, this is not the
same as "Unset" since this is actually a fill type rather than no fill type.
Objects set to "No Paint" still act as normal shapes and paths when they are manipulated in
path operations. For instance, a boolean operation will react to the path exactly the same
whether it has no paint fill or any other kind of fill.
Note: any object with 0% opacity (completely transparent) on both fill and stroke is not
selectable by normal click selection. Any other selection method should work for
transparent objects.
Plain Color
A solid color paints the object or stroke. In both Fill and Stroke Paint tabs, there are sub-tabs
whereby color selections can be made either precisely (with the numeric and alpha-numeric
controls) or more generally (with wheels and sliders). Each selector type also shows an
RGBA definition box at the bottom-right in which one may define a specific hexadecimal
color.
RGB offers four sliders representing percentages of red, green, blue, and alpha
HSL offers four sliders representing percentages of hue, saturation, lightness, and
alpha
CMYK offers five sliders representing percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, black
and alpha
Wheel offers a convenient (though less precise) selection apparatus consisting of a

hue wheel and a combination saturation/lightness triangle, underneath which is an
alpha slider
CMS (only available in some distributions) allows selection of a color profile and
offers an alpha slider underneath
Linear Gradient
A linear gradient paints the object or stroke according to two settings. The gradient
selector box chooses the gradient definition to use. The repeat type selector box chooses
none (the gradient only fills once from it's beginning point to its end point), direct (repeats
the gradient infinitely, likely causing an abrupt color change at the end of each repetition if
the ends are different colors), or reflected (repeats the gradient infinitely also, except that
each repetition flips the gradient so the color changes are always smooth at the end of each
repetition).
The direction and extent of the gradient is adjusted by dragging the handles.
Gradients may also be duplicated or edited from this dialog panel using the provided buttons.
Radial Gradient
This panel works the same as linear gradient except that the gradient is applied radially.
The elliptical "shape", placement and extent of the radius is controlled by the three handles.
Pattern
An SVG or bitmap pattern, selected from the selection box, paints the object.
To create your own pattern, select the object from which the pattern will be
created. Then select Object > Pattern > Object to Pattern or pressAlt+I. Your
object will dissapear from the canvas and appear on the list of patterns.
To do the reverse, select Object > Pattern > Pattern to Object or press
Shift+Alt+I.
If the object filled with pattern is transformed, the pattern will be also. If you don't want the
pattern to be transformed, uncheck "Transform patterns" from the Transforms tab in the
Preferences dialog.
Unset
Unset fill is applied to a master object of clones in order to make the clones paintable. This
must be applied individually to the object's fill and stroke to affect each. This will make the
object's fill appear black and its stroke appear invisible.
Even-Odd
This setting is available only for an object's Fill. It causes the fill to be completely
transparent wherever a path crosses over itself.
Non-Zero
This setting is available only for an object's Fill. It causes the fill to be shown wherever a
path crosses over itself. This is the default setting.
Blur
Blur is not actually a paint function at all - it is actually an SVG filter effect. However, it
makes sense in Fill and Stroke, since it is a very commonly useful visual effect. It is also
important to note that blur affects the entire object, not just the fill or the stroke, and cannot
be applied separately to either.
Apply blur by dragging the slider or setting the number box to the desired blur factor.
Usually only a small factor (0-10) is needed.
Opacity
Opacity sets the degree to which objects behind the affected object may be seen through it.
This opacity setting is separate from the color alpha setting, which is particular to either the
fill or stroke paint. Like blur, opacity applies to the entire object, affecting both fill and
stroke together.
Stroke Style
Object strokes or outlines can have various styles applied to them from the Stroke Style panel on the Fill
and Stroke dialog. (Stroke paint is applied from the Stroke Paint dialog and is not covered in this
chapter.)
The center of an object's stroke follows the path of the object. For example, if the stroke is 10 pixels
wide, the stroke will be drawn 5 pixels in opposite directions on either side of the path.
How to Use
While an object is selected, activate the Fill and Stroke dialog by pressing Shift+Ctrl+F or selecting
Object > Fill and Stroke. Changes in the dialogue will immediately affect the selected object(s).
A brief list of stroke style options follows:
Width controls how thick the stroke is and your desired measurement unit.
Join controls the type of angle on a non-curve joint - miter (angled corners), round (rounded
corners) or bevel (flat corners). This affects the outside of the join only.
Miter limit keeps corners mitered at set limits of corner angle; the higher the miter limit setting,
the sharper the corner can be while retaining its miter.
Cap controls the type of cap that is on the end of an open path - butt cap (flat), round cap (half-
circle) or end cap (flat but extended).
Dashes controls the dash pattern and its offset from the primary node.
Start Markers, Mid Markers and End Markers set a marker selection from the dropdown (there
is a pre-set selection of arrow-heads, etc). Mid Markers places only one marker at the middle of
the path.
Creating New Markers
Create your object on the canvas, select it and then select Object > Objects to marker. Your marker will
appear in the selection box for markers.
If you are putting markers on a path and want to match them to the color of the path, select Effects >
Modify Path > Color Markers.
Live Path Effects

Live path effects (not to be confused with Extension Effects or SVG Filters) are a new way to non-
destructively modify path and shape objects. Path Effects affect the path data of an object but not its
style. The original path is preserved and can be edited directly on canvas, and the path effect applied to it
will be updated live.
In the version 0.46 several path effects that are analogous to the corresponding extension effects (such as
Path along Path effect and Pattern along Path that replaces the extension of the same name) are
included. The most important advantage of path effects is that they are, indeed, live — you can still edit
the original path and the effect will update in real time (unlike the extension effects which were one-time
one-way transformations).
Details about operation

The following schematic tries to explain how LPE work.
original style ------------> output style

original path --> LPE --> output path
^
|
parameters
The original style and path are from the path that the effect is applied on. The output is what is visible on
screen. What is very important to notice is that output style equals original style.
The parameters can be paths, numbers, points, text, in principle anything.
Applying effects
Path effects are applied through the Path Effects dialog. This is opened from the Path menu, or by
pressing Ctrl +Shift +7. This dialog is also used for controlling the effect's parameters and for removing
effects.
When a path with a path effect applied is selected, the statusbar description gives details, for example
"Path (4 nodes, path effect)".
There is a special Paste Path Effect command Ctrl+ 7 that can be used to copy effects from one path to
another.
Editing effect parameters

When switching to the Node Edit tool F2, the original path can be edited. The original path is shown as
a red helper path. Normal path operations, like simplify, still work.
Some parameters of these effects can be edited on-canvas. For example, path parameters can be node-
edited, by pressing the edit on-canvas button in the Path Effects dialog. Press 7 to cycle through the
different on-canvas editable parameters. This way, one can edit the parameters without opening the Path
Effects dialog. The statusbar tells the name of the parameters that is currently being shown.
Available effects
Currently available live path effects are:
Bend
Pattern along path
Stitch subpaths
Gears
Development of new effects

One of the goals of the Summer of Code project was to make it easy to create new effects. There is a
framework that greatly simplifies effect implementation; very little code is needed to get the effect
hooked into Inkscape. This leaves valuable time for the actual effect to be implemented. See the
http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/MakingLivePathEffects wiki page for an explanation of how to
get started with your own effect!
Gears
The Gears effect is a toy effect. It generates a chain of interconnected gears from the path that has the
effect applied to it. The nodes of the path define the centers of the gears. The first 3 nodes are special; the
first defines the start angle of the chain, the second defines the center of the first gear and the third knot
specifies the radius of the first gear. That is, to create a chain of 2 gears, you will need a path with 4
nodes; for 3 gears, 5 nodes, and so on.
Pattern along path

The Pattern along Path effect can curve a path along another path. When this effect is applied to path A
(called skeleton), another path B (called pattern) can then be passed as a parameter. The result is that path
B is bent along path A. With the node edit tool, path A can be changed on-canvas and the result is
updated live. This provides a direct equivalent of "vector brushes" or "skeletal strokes" features in other
vector editors.
In the effect's control panel in the Path Effects dialog, you can select how many copies of the pattern are
attached (either single or repeated) and whether the pattern is stretched to fill the skeleton path. You can
also choose the pattern for the selected skeleton [either directly or] by pasting it from clipboard (that is,
you select and copy to the clipboard the pattern, then select the skeleton, apply the Path along path effect,
and paste the pattern). The Scale width parameter allows you to change the width of the pattern applied
to the path.
Knot LPE
Creates a knot from a flat self-intersecting curve: at each crossing, one strand is interrupted to make it
look like it's going under the other. The "sign" of each crossing (first strand interrupted, second
interrupted, or no interruptions) can be set independently by clicking the on-screen handle which can be
dragged from one crossing to the other.
Warning: as far as possible, the LPE tries to keep the modifications of crossing signs unchanged under
small deformations. For large or topology changing deformations however, some or all crossings might
jump back to their default orientation.
Introduction to SVG Filter Effects

Basics
SVG filters are different from e.g. GIMP filters in a sense that what counts in GIMP for a filter in SVG is
a filter primitive. And a filter in SVG can contain multiple primitives. For example, an SVG filter that
creates an effect of fire consistes of Turbulence, Color Matrix and Gaussian blur primitives. SVG filters
are also non-destructive in its nature and canbe applied to both vector and bitmap objects of an SVG
document.
What should be taken into consideration all the time is that SVG Filters always deal with bitmap
representation of vector graphics. A filter either makes a momentary snapshot of all data below it, or
instantly reapplies changes to underlying bitmap representation of an image when it changes.
Filter primitives
Inkscape supports the following SVG filter proimitives:
The feBlend filter primitive gives us image blending modes, like in many image manipulation
programs. These modes are screen, multiply, darken and lighten. There's a caveat, though: when
blending an object against an semi-transparent background, the background will be accumulated
twice, resulting in thicker objects under the bounding box of blended object. This is a limitation of
current version of SVG format, not a bug in Inkscape.
The feColorMatrix filter primitive applies a matrix transformation to colour of each rendered
pixel. This allows for effects like turning object to grayscale, modifying colour saturation and
changing colour hue.
The feComposite filter primitive composites two images using one of the Porter-Duff blending
modes (described in paper Compositing Digital Images by T. Porter and T. Duff, published in
SIGGRAPH '84 Conference Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery, Volume 18,
Number 3, July 1984) or the aritmetic mode described in SVG standard. Porter-Duff blending
modes are essentially logical operations between the images. For example, xor mode shows the
areas, where either one of the objects is, but not the areas where both of the objects are. Arithmetic
mode lets you specify coefficients k1-k4 for blending equation (result colour) = k1 * (first input
colour) * (second input colour) + k2 * (first input colour) + k3 * (second input colour) + k4.
The feConvolveMatrix lets you specify a Convolution to be applied on the image. Common
effects created using convolution matrices are blur, sharpening, embossing and edge detection.
There's a fairly good explanation and some example matrices at
www.gamedev.net/reference/programming/features/imageproc/page2.asp. Note that while gaussian
blur can be created using this filter primitive, the special gaussian blur primitive is faster and
resolution-independent.
Filter primitives feDiffuseLighting and feSpecularLighting create lighting maps for the object in
input image. SVG doesn't have concept of third dimension, so these filters use alpha channel of
input image as a height map: the more opaque given point in input image is, the nearer spectator it
is considered to be. There exists an example for using these in Inkscape distribution, in
share/examples/lighting_effects.svg.
The feDisplacementMap filter primitive displaces the pixels in the first input using the second
input as a displacement map, that shows from how far the pixel should come from. Classical
examples are whirl and pinch effects, that can be found in most image manipulation programs and
even in some screensavers, where this kind off effect is moving around screen, twisting desktop
beneath it.
The feFlood filter primitive fills its region with a given color and opacity. It can be used as an
auxiliary tool, usualy in combination with other filter primitives, in order to facilitate some
common color handling operations.
The feGaussianBlur filter primitive allows natural blurring any Inkscape objects: paths, shapes,
groups, text, images. Gaussian blur enables a wide range of photorealistic effects: arbitrarily
shaped shades and lights, depth of field, drop shadows, glows, etc. Also, blurred objects can be
used as masks for other objects to achieve the "feathered mask" effect.
The feImage filter primitive allows using external images as part of filtering chain. For example,
one could use external image as a displacement map for feDisplacementMap or as a height map for
lighting effects. Note that while SVG standard allows using other parts of the SVG file in this filter
primitive, the current Inkscape implementation only allows external images.
The feMerge filter primitive composites several temporary images inside the filter primitive to a
single image. It uses normal alpha compositing for this. This is equivalent to using several feBlend
primitives in 'normal' mode or several feComposite primitives in 'over' -mode.
The feMorphology filter primitive provides erode and dilate effects, that are common in image
manipulation programs. With erode, darker and more transparent areas spread to lighter and more
opaque areas, whereas with dilate lighter and more opaque areas spread to darker and more
transparent areas. For single-colour objects, this basically means, erode makes the object thinner
and dilate makes it thicker.
The feOffset filter primitive offsets the image by an user-defined amount. For example, this is
useful for drop shadows, where the shadow is in a slightly different position than the actual object.
The feTurbulence filter primitive renders Perlin noise. This kind of noise is useful in simulating
several nature phenomena like clouds, fire and smoke and in generating complex textures like
marble or granite.
Filter UI
Parts of the dialog
Creating and modifying filter effects is done in a dedicated dialog Object>Filter Effects....
The list at the left of the dialog displays all filters currently in the document.
Managing filters
New filters can be added with the Add button beneath the list
Right-clicking a filter for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a filter.
Double-clicking a filter will apply it to all selected objects
A black dot is placed next to whatever filter is applied to the selected objects. If more than one
filter is in use by selected objects, an unfilled dot is used instead.
Managing filter primitives
The second list, at the left of the dialog, displays the filter primitives that are contained within the
currently-selected filter.
New primitives can be added by selecting the primitive type from the combo box beneath the list,
and then pressing the Add button.
Right-clicking a primitive for the pop-up menu allows duplicating or removing a primitive.
Primitives can be rearranged by clicking and dragging any filter in the list.
When a filter is selected, the Settings group at the bottom of the dialog will change to display the
attributes available for that primitive. Changing a setting results in an immediate update to the
document.
The "in" and "in2" attributes for filters that support them are not shown in the Settings group.
These input connections are displayed graphically in the list, under the Connections column.
Inputs for a particular filter are displayed as triangles. Depending on the primitive type, there
may be one or two inputs (or more for Merge primitives.) Connections can be created by
clicking on a triangle and dragging.
There are six standard input types that can be used for any primitive input; Source Graphic,
Source Alpha, Background Image, Background Alpha, Fill Paint, and Stroke Paint. These
are displayed vertically on the far right of the list. Click and drag from an input triangle to
one of the standard inputs to connect them.
Primitives can also be connected to other primitives by clicking an input triangle and
dragging upwards to another primitive. A primitive can only be connected to one higher up
the list.
Single-clicking on an input triangle will unset it, returning it to the default. If it is on a Merge
primitive, the input will be deleted.
Merge inputs have an empty input at the end. Dragging a connection from this input will add
a new input to the primitive.
Color Management
Operation Systems Support
Сolor management is supported in Linux and Mac OS X only in version 0.46 and in Windows in version
0.47+.
Prerequisites
*.icc color profile files need to be present in one of the following folders to be listed in the preferences
dialog dropdown menus.
Linux:
/home/<user>/.local/share/color/icc
/home/<user>/.config/.color/icc
/usr/local/share/color/icc
/usr/share/color/icc
/usr/share/gdm/color/icc
Windows (Inkscape 0.47+):
C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\My Documents\color\icc

C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Application Data\.color\icc
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\color\icc
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\.color\icc
<application directory>\share\color\icc
Calibrated SVG Color including CMYK

Inkscape supports color-managed color definitions that use a colorspace other than sRGB (for example
Adobe RGB, or calibrated CMYK colors). In the SVG file, this is done using the optional "icc-color(...)"
paint components as described in section 11.2 "Specifying paint" of the SVG 1.1 specification. A fallback
sRGB value will be used for non color managed workflows. This allows using of calibrated color spaces,
including using CMYK values that are preserved across applications.
The CMS color selector tab allows these colors to be edited.
Display Adjustment
Color Management tab in Inkscape Preferences dialog provides options for enabling display adjustment:
Display Profile. Here you set an ICC file for you calibrated and profile display.
Retrieve profile from display. On X11-based systems (i.e. Unix and Mac OSX) use of ICC
Profiles In X Specification (or XICC) can be enabled. Support for version 0.2 of this specification
has been implemented. Enabling this option by choosing to retrieve profiles from the display will
switch Inkscape to using profiles attached to screens at runtime. These allow display adjustment to
be changed on the fly, and to be set/cleared per-display. This is especially helpful for a multi-
display configuration.
When XICC support is enabled, windows will adjust to the proper profile as they are moved
across monitors. Also, as the windows are moved onto monitors with no profile attached, the
adjustment toggle will become disabled. When the windows are moved onto screens that do
have profiles, the toggle will become enabled.
Display Rendering Intent. You can choose between Perceptual, Relative Colorimetric,
Saturation and Absolute Colorimetric.
Perceptual intent prevents from gamut clipping by preserving relationships between color.
Saturation intent preserves saturation and best suits for illustrations with indexed color
palette like logos.
Relative colorimetric intent maps original white color to color of the paper and translates
other colors accordingly.
Absolute colorimetric intent tries to produce closest match, but suits mostly spot color
workflows.
It has to be noted that display adjustment is enabled and disabled for each Inkscape's window. This
allows for simultaneous viewing of adjusted and unadjusted views of a single document by using multiple
windows. There is a toggle at the bottom-right corner of the scrollbars that allows for turning on and off
display adjustment. The toggle will have a disabled state to provide visible feedback when no profile is
set.
Proofing
This section in Color Management tab allows defining settings for an output device such as printer:
Simulate output on screen option enables softproofing, that is — the document will look exactly
as it will be outputted to printer.
Mark out of gamut colors. All devices have a unique set of colors (gamut) they can reproduce, be
it a display or a printer. This option enables marking the colors that cannot be reproduced in
destination color space with a user defined color. By default neutral grey color is used.
Device profile. This is an ICC profile for the output device (usually, a printer). For Europe the
Euroscale Uncoated v2 profile is recommended to be used by default, and for USA — U.S. Web
Coated (SWOP) v2 or U.S. Sheet-fed Coated v2.
Device Rendering Intent. You can choose between Perceptual, Relative Colorimetric, Saturation
and Absolute Colorimetric.
Black Point Compensation. BPC's primary function is to map dynamic range of an image to
dynamic range of an output device, so that contrast us not lost. It is usually used for publications
with a lot of full color graphics like photos. Note that BPC is used only with relative colorimetric
rendering intent and should be disabled for other rendering intent types.
Preserve Black. Makes Inkscape do its best to provide same level of blackness in the output.
Creating ICC Profiles

For creating ICC profiles with free software LProf and ArgyllCMS are recommended.
Generate Template
The only available extension to create a template right now is Perfect-Bound Cover which modifies the
document to create a cover for perfect-bound books using US size and paper weight measurements. This
extension will resize the document to include the width, height, spine width, and bleed measurements that
are provided to the extensions, so it should be the first operation done before designing.
Ideally, you want to know the PPI of the paper stock you’ll be using. Average caliper size or point size
(which is the caliper size times 1000) are just as good. Your printer should be able to tell you any of
these measurements. If not, you’ll have to guess. Or find another printer. If you don’t know the PPI,
caliper, or point size of the paper your printer is using, but do know the type of paper and its weight,
you can estimate PPI or caliper using the charts on the Case Paper
( http://www.casepaper.com/calc_chart_caliper.htm ) or the Micro Format ( http://www.paper-
paper.com/weight.html ) site.
For instance, let’s say your printer uses 20# bond paper, a pretty standard paper weight, to print the
interior pages of your 200 page book. Most likely, the caliper size of this paper is .004, but again, verify
this with your printer before proceeding. Calculate the PPI by diving the number 2 by the caliper size:
2/.004 = 500
The PPI of this paper is 500, which means that, for every 500 pages in your book, the spine will be 1
inch thick.
Now, with the PPI, you can calculate the thickness of the spine, without the allowance for the cover. The
size of the spine for the interior pages will be:
200/500 = .4 inches
Next, do the same for the cover. Let’s say your cover is going to be printed on 9pt paper stock. Points to
caliper is a really easy conversion — divide the points by 1000 to get .009, then calculate:
2/.009 = 222
Since the cover is four “pages” (outside and inside covers), the additional inches you need to add to the
spine will be:
4/222 = .018
So your final spine width in inches for a 200 page book printed on 20# bond with a cover that is printed
on 9pt stock is:
(200 / (2/.004)) + (4 / (2/.009)) = .418
.4 + .018 = .418 inches
All this is different in metric.
Let's take an example. You have a 6″x9″ book with 176 pages to be printed on paper with a PPI of 426
and the cover — on 9pt stock. You also need 1/8″ bleeds. Here’s how you would set up the document:
And here is how the final document looks:
You can also use the Live Preview option to see what you get.
Installing Inkscape on Windows

Software name : Inkscape
Homepage : http://www.inkscape.org/
Software version used for this installation : 0.46
Operating System use for this installation : Microsoft Windows (2000)
Recommended Hardware : 200 Mhz processor (CPU) minimum
Installing Inkscape is relatively easy. You need only an internet connection and browser. First visit the
download page of Inkscape : http://www.inkscape.org/download/
Now scroll down to the Official Releases' section to the link that says 'Windows' :
We will choose the '.exe installer' so click on this. You will be redirected to a 'SourceForge' page. This is
where the installation files are hosted :
The download will begin automatically. You chould see a dialog like this (it may look different according
to the browser you are using):
Press 'Save File'. Your installation file will start downloading. You need to know where the file is
downloading to. If you know where this is then you need to find the file on your computer. You should
see an icon like this :
Now you need to double-click on tis icon and the installation process will begin.
You can click through the above introduction screen.
The above is just the license agreement. If you don't agree to it then press cancel but this means you will
not be able to install the software. If you wish to install the software click 'Next >' :
The entire installation size is listed here as 215.9MB. If this is too big then you may wish to turn off some
of the boxes with green arrows. The items with green arrows are optional, the best saving would be to
turn of all the Translations (saves 45MB) - however this means you will not be able to use Inkscape in
any language other than english. When you finished with the options click 'Next >' :
The above window just tells you where Inkscape will be installed. Unless you have good reason to
change the above settings then it is better to leave it as it is and press 'Install'. Then the installation
window appears and reports the progress:
When the install has finished you will see the following:
To run Inkscape just leave the 'Run Inkscape 0.46' and press 'Finish'. Inkscape then appears:
Create a Basic Icon

Inkscape is an excellent tool for creating icons. Generally speaking icons are required in different
formats so that makes SVG an excellent format as it is a scalable graphics format. This means you can
shrink or enlarge the graphic to the required size without losing any quality.
This tutorial was made with Ubuntu, but works with any operating system supported by Inkscape. In this
case, only the way you open Inkscape and the general look and feel may be different.
Create New Icon File

First open Inkscape and to create a new file. Click on the File menu and choose 'New' and then
'icon_32x32'.
A new blank file will then open with, in this example, a grid:
The grid is a 32x32 block grid, the same size as many of the icons you will find on your computer. The
lines in this grid will not appear when the final image is exported to another type of file such as JPEG or
GIF. The grid is just there to help you create the square icon within the standard 32x32 pixel dimensions.
It's possible to add or remove the grid using the 'View>Grid' menu.
Save the File

Before you start work it is a good idea to first save the file. Even though the content of the file is empty it
is good practice to always save the file before you start so that you can easily save the changes as you go.
By doing this you ensure yourself against losing your work if your computer crashes or turns off
unintentionally. Save the file by clicking on 'File' and 'Save As...' :
This will pop open a dialog box. The style of your dialog may differ from the following :
You can change the name of the file to anything to help you identify it (in the above example it is
'drawing.svg'). Make sure when you save it the file name has '.svg' at the end. You can also click through
the folders on your computer using this dialog box until you find the folder where you wish to save the
file. When you have the right location click 'Save'.
Using the Icon Preview Window

If you are going to be exporting the image into a bitmap version and using it for multiple reasons, it may
be important to know how it will turn out as a icon during the creation process. Therefore Inkscape has
the added feature of a bitmap previewer. This window will let you see what your icon will look like in the
16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48 and 128x128 common size views. Located in the Menu through: View >
Icon Preview...
Start Work
Now we will proceed to draw the icon. You can choose any of the tools for creating shapes and colors.
Currently icons that look three dimensional are very popular but we will look at creating a very two
dimensional icon. So lets make a simple radio icon. It will end up looking something like this:
Lets start with making the background circle. Choose the circle tool from the tool bar on the left of
Inkscape:
With this tool selected you need to click in one of the corners of the grid and drag to the diagonally
opposite corner. It might take a bit of practice until you have this right. The end result should look
something like this:
You may have a dark line around the outside of the circle. If you do we will look at how to remove this
shortly. For now we will change the color of the circle to the desired color. I will choose the HTML color
code '#ff7f00'. You may wish to choose another color. To change the color of the circle you must right-
click on the circle and choose 'Fill and Stroke':
The following dialog should appear:
I know the HTML color code is the equivalent to the RGB code + 'ff'. So I will add 'ff7f00ff' to the
RGBA box near the bottom :
If you know your HTML color code then add it here. Otherwise you can use the RGB sliders to choose a
color. As you change the values you will see the color of the circle change simultaneously. If you had a
line around the outside of the circle when you created it you can now delete it by clicking on the 'Stroke
style' tab and set the 'Width' box (at the top of the tab) to 0 (zero) px. When you are happy with the color
of the circle just move the 'Fill and Stroke' dialog to the side (if you have enough room on your screen) or
close it. We will use it again a little later.
My colored circle now looks like this :
Now we wish to add the radio to the middle of our circle. We will first add a black box with rounded
corners to the middle of the circle. Click on the 'Square and Rectangle' tool on the left :
Now click somewhere in the circle and drag the mouse in a diagonal towards the bottom of the page. You
are now creating the square but you will not see anything happening on the screen so you have to guess
the approximate distance you drag before you release the mouse. You should see something like this :
Now, return to the 'Fill and Stroke' dialog box and change the value of the RGBA box (In the 'Fill' tabe')
to "000000ff" :
Now the square should appear black :
You could also have used the color sliders to choose a color.
Now we wish to make nice rounded corners on the black box. To do this mouse over the small round
circle at the top right of the black box. It should go 'red' :
Click on the circle when it is red and drag it vertically down and you will all the corners of the black box
change to rounded corners as you drag. When you are satisfied with the amount of 'rounding' release the
mouse button :
Now we need to create three white circles for the 'dial' and 'tuning buttons' of the radio. Do this using the
same method as you used for creating the first large circle, except you want to try and create them in the
right place in the black box.
Now we want an antenna on the top right. We will use the pencil tool that you will also find on the left
tool bar:
To draw a straight line click where you wish the line to start and then click again where you wish it to
finish:
Now we wish to give the antenna a nice circular tip so we return to the 'Fill and Stroke' dialog and look at
the 'Stroke style' tab. You will notice here a 'cap' section :
Click on the middle box in this section and your antenna will be instantly rounded :
Exporting to PNG
We will now export this to a PNG. You may wish to use another graphic file format however Inkscape
will only support export to PNG. To convert the image to another format you will need to use an image
software such as GIMP.
Choose 'File' and 'Export Bitmap...':
You will see a dialog appear like this:
If you just pressed 'Export' right now you would export a 32x32 PNG to the folder '/home/folder'. You
can change any of these settings. To change the dimensions of the image click on the arrows next to the
Width and Height boxes. To change the file name and the location you wish to export the file to you must
click on the 'Browse' button.
License
All chapters copyright of the authors (see below). Unless otherwise stated all chapters in this manual
licensed with GNU General Public License version 2
This documentation is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the
License, or (at your option) any later version.
This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this documentation; if
not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301,
USA.
Authors
3D BOX TOOL
© Joshua Facemyer 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Alexandre Prokoudine 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Chris Hale 2008
Nicolas Dufour 2008
ABOUT SVG
© ryan lerch 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Elia Giovanni Babsia 2008
Joshua Facemyer 2008
Kevin Brownhill 2008
Rafe DiDomenico 2008
ALIGN AND DISTRIBUTE

© Joshua Facemyer 2008, 2009
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Elisa de Castro Guerra 2008
BUCKET FILL TOOL

Modifications:
adam hyde 2008

Cedric Gemy 2008
CALLIGRAPHY TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Olivier Gondouin-Liu 2008
CLIP AND MASK

© ryan lerch 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
COLOR MANAGEMENT
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Eddy Martin 2008
Jimmy Volatile 2009
COLOR PALETTE
CONNECTOR TOOL
© Michael Wybrow 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
COPY, CLONE, & DUPLICATE

Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
CREATING ICONS
© adam hyde 2008
Modifications:
Austin Martin 2009
Cyn Cid 2008
Nicolas Dufour 2008
CREDITS
© adam hyde 2006, 2007
Modifications:
Queen Victoria 2008
TWikiGuest 2008
DROPPER TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
ELLIPSE TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
FILL AND STROKE

© Alexandre Prokoudine 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
GEARS
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
GENERATE TEMPLATE
© John Bintz 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Nicolas Dufour 2008
GRADIENT TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Austin Martin 2009
Cedric Gemy 2008
GROUPING
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
INSTALLING ON WINDOWS
© adam hyde 2008
Modifications:
TWikiGuest 2008
THE INKSCAPE INTERFACE

Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Damien Cassou 2009
Donna Benjamin 2009
John Curwood 2009
ABOUT INKSCAPE
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008, 2009
Harjot Dhodi 2009
Kevin Brownhill 2008
Marian Cimbru 2009
INTRODUCTION
© Cedric Gemy 2008
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
INTRODUCTION
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Joshua Facemyer 2008, 2009
KNOT
LAYERS
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
INTRODUCTION
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
MODIFY PATH
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
damian stewart 2009
NODE TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Christopher King 2009
John Curwood 2009
TWikiGuest 2008
PATTERN ALONG PATH

Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
PEN TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Chris Hale 2008
PENCIL TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
RECTANGLE TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Austin Martin 2009
Cedric Gemy 2008
TWikiGuest 2009
INTRODUCTION
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
TWikiGuest 2008
SELECTOR TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Cyn Cid 2008
SPIRAL TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
STAR TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
STROKE STYLE
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
STYLING TEXT
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
TEXT AND PATHS

Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
TEXT EFFECTS
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
TEXT TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Donna Benjamin 2008
TWEAK TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
John Curwood 2009
WORKING WITH FILES

Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Cedric Gemy 2008
Elisa de Castro Guerra 2008, 2009
John Curwood 2009
Nevit Dilmen 2009
TWikiGuest 2008
ZOOM TOOL
Modifications:
adam hyde 2008
Austin Martin 2009
Cedric Gemy 2008
Free manuals for free software
General Public License

Version 2, June 1991
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies

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_all < Inkscape < TWiki Page 1 of 142

Objectives of the SVG Format

The Current State of SVG Software

We may divide the window into nine major areas:

1. the Menu (at the top of the window)

The Commands Bar

The Toolbox and Tool Controls Bar

Here is an example of a standard axonometric grid and a rectangular grid.

Grid line color

Show dots instead of lines

Snap Controls Bar

Color indicator for the object

Working with files

One can create a new file in several ways:

Press Ctrl + N (creates a new document from the default template)

modifying an existing document;

getting some part of a document to reuse it for another one;

exporting the document in a new format.

There are a couple of methods for opening files:

The File Save Dialog

Directory and File Panels

Defines the file format for saving the file.

Commonly Used File Formats

An exchange format developed by Adobe, PDF documents can contain any

EXtensible Application Markup Language. Developed by Microsoft to

PNG (Portable Network Graphics) is a Raster Image format recommended

.ps, .eps, .epsi

PS (PostScript) is a page description language developed by Adobe in the early

EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) is a subset of the ps file format used for

EPSI (Encapsulated PostScript Interchange) is a raster image format used as a

A 2D and 3D graphics file format developed by Autodesk for the AutoCAD

Extended (Enhanced) Windows Metafile Format. A vector graphics format

Just click any object once to select it.

Adding Objects to and Removing Objects from Selection

Inverting Object Selection

Hold Ctrl while dragging if proportion constraint is needed.

Hold Ctrl while rotating to constrain rotations to 15 degree increments.

Compare rotation around center which is in it default position

Mirroring flips a selection either vertically or horizontally. Flipping a selection while in

However, in rotate/shear mode mirroring happens about an (imaginary) vertical/horizontal

To mirror an object vertically, select Object->Flip Vertical or pressV.

To mirror an object horizontally, select Object->Flip Horizontal or press H.

Scaling of Stroke Width, Rectangle Corners, and Fills

Moving Nodes and Node Handles

Join Nodes with a New Segment

Adds a path segment between two open nodes.

Split Path Between Two non-Endpoint Nodes

Break Path at Selected Nodes

Make Selected Nodes Corner (Convert to Cusp)

Make Selected Nodes Smooth

Make Selected Nodes Symmetric

Make Selected Nodes Auto-Smooth

Make Selected Segments Lines

Make Selected Segments Curves

Convert Selected Object to Path

Convert Selected Object's Stroke to Paths

Edit the Clipping Path of the Object

Edit the Mask of the Object

Show Next Path Effect Parameter for Editing

Show the Bezier Handles of Selected Nodes