Design Made Easy with Inkscape E-Book

Christopher Rogers

• Herausgeber: Packt Publishing
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 380

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Discover quick and easy ways to make charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UX/UI mockups with end-to-end guidance using hands-on tutorials, tips, and tricks

Key Features

Get up to speed with vector illustration in no time

Explore hotkey charts and tips, with best practices developed over ten years of using Inkscape

Learn the fundamentals of vector illustration and efficiently leverage Inkscape's powerful toolset

Book Description

With the power and versatility of the Inkscape software, making charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UI mockups with infinite resolution becomes enjoyable. If you’re looking to get up to speed with vector illustration in no time, this comprehensive guide has got your back! Design Made Easy with Inkscape is easy to follow and teaches you everything you need to know to create graphics that you can use and reuse forever, for free!

You’ll benefit from the author’s industry experience as you go over the basics of vector illustration, discovering tips and tricks for getting professional graphics done fast by leveraging Inkscape's powerful toolset. This book teaches by example, using a great variety of use cases from icons and logos to illustration, web design, and product design. You’ll learn about hotkeys and take a best-practices approach developed over ten years of using Inkscape as a design tool in production. What’s more, this book also includes links to free graphics resources that you can use in all your projects.

Whether you’re a new user or a professional, by the end of this book, you’ll have full understanding of how to use Inkscape and its myriad of excellent features to make stunning graphics for your projects.

What you will learn

Understand the benefits of vector illustration and the reasons behind choosing Inkscape over other non-free alternatives

Navigate the Inkscape setup and workspace to make effective use of the software

Explore the wide range of tools from Inkscape to create amazing and infinitely scalable graphics quickly

Use real-world scenarios and practice lessons to learn how to create by example

Discover tips and tricks to make Inkscape an extension of your creativity

Convert photos to vector art and practice with professional design examples as you work with layers, shading, coloring and much more

Who this book is for

This book is for aspiring designers, developers, and anyone who wants to leverage the power of Inkscape for vector illustration. No prior knowledge of graphics applications or vector and raster graphics is required. This book simplifies Inkscape for dummies; all you need to know is how to use a mouse and keyboard.

Leseprobe

Design Made Easy with Inkscape

A practical guide to your journey from beginner to pro-level vector illustration

Christopher Rogers

BIRMINGHAM—MUMBAI

Design Made Easy with Inkscape

Copyright © 2023 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing or its dealers and distributors, will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to have been caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Group Product Manager: Rohit Rajkumar

Publishing Product Manager: Ashitosh Gupta

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First published: May 2023

Production reference: 2280423

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

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ISBN 978-1-80107-877-1

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I'd like to quickly thank all those who provided feedback and advice on this book. This includes my friend and mentor Martin Owens (aka Doctormo), who has worked with me to fix many of the bugs that I've identified during the writing process and make Inkscape a significantly better user experience. Ultimately, it's his work and the work of others in the project that make Inkscape an easier software to teach and learn from. Please do consider supporting his Inkscape development work here: https://www.patreon.com/doctormo.

I'd also like to thank my folks, Charles and Starrlet Rogers, for always supporting my creative endeavours, my family and friends for believing in me, my girlfriend Aless for encouraging me to complete this process, and my sister Lisa for providing some financial assistance and the ever-important question "How's the book coming?".

A big thanks also goes to the Open Document Foundation for their work on LibreOffice Writer, which enabled me to write this book and communicate with my publisher on Linux, using only free and open source software.

Lastly, dear reader, I'd like to thank you for buying this book to help support my work in the Inkscape project and teaching activities on Inkscape's various social media platforms. It's my pleasure to help you learn one of the greatest design tools gifted to the world by Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers, contributors, and the greater Inkscape community.

Christopher Rogers

Contributors

About the author

Christopher Rogers (also known as C. Rogers) is an international artist, designer, and animator, presently working out of London, England. American born, he started his career after university making small websites and advertising media for the Coloradoan newspaper.

Through his freelance contracting work, he began working with Ashtead Retail & Wholesale Ltd (tuff-luv.com, alstoncraig.com) with headquarters in Weybridge, England. He was eventually sponsored by this company to come to London and work as a full-time graphics and product designer.

It was in Leeds that he attended his first Inkscape Hackfest and subsequently joined the project as a contributor, then eventually was elected to the board of directors (also known as Inkscape PLC). He has served on the board of Inkscape for the past five years as of the writing of this book and produced three of Inkscape’s annual release videos (1.0, 1.1, and 1.2), which can be found on YouTube on the official Inkscape channel.

He has produced videos and teaching materials for Inkscape for the University of Exeter and helped with the development of new Inkscape features over the years. He loves to help others get to grips with powerful FOSS in the name of creative freedom.

You can check out his latest design portfolio here: https://crogersmedia.com/crogers_portfolio.pdf.

About the reviewer

Stephanie Hardy is a 2D digital artist and animator. She has always had an interest in drawing and cartoons. In 2014 she completed an associate degree in computer animation. She has expertise with the Adobe Creative Suite and has used Inkscape since 2017.

In 2020 she started freelancing and has loved it ever since, now having a career doing what she loves all from the comfort of her home. Her work includes logos, cartoon animations, mascots, coloring pages, t-shirt designs, and more!

Table of Contents

Preface

Part 1: Finding Your Way Around

1

The Inkscape Interface

Technical requirements

Navigating the interface

The Menu bar

The Tool bar and Tool control bar

The Desk and Page areas

The Swatch Palette

The color indicators

The Layer Info Indicator

The Status bar

The Docking area and dialogs

The Commands bar

The Snap control bar

The Display Transform Control

Summary

2

Moving and Styling Shapes

Technical requirements

Introducing shapes in Inkscape

Raster versus vector images

Drawing your first shape

Fill and Stroke

Using the Select and Transform tool

Selecting and deselecting individual shapes

Selecting multiple shapes all at once

Selecting everything

Fancy selecting with the Alt key

Selecting objects with the same attributes

Invert selection

Moving shapes

Cutting, copying, pasting, and deleting shapes

Resizing shapes

Resizing the height and width values with the Select and Transform tool

Resizing shapes with Paste Size

Scaling styles

Rotating shapes

Raising and lowering shapes

Grouping shapes

Flipping shapes

Summary

3

Drawing Shapes with the Shape Tools

Technical requirements

Inkscape’s object properties

The Rectangle tool

The Circle, Ellipse, and Arc tools

The Polygon and Star tool

The 3D Box tool

The Spiral tool

Try it yourself

Summary

4

Automatic Shape Alignment in Inkscape

Technical requirements

The Align and Distribute dialog

Text object alignment

On Canvas Alignment

Rearranging options

Grid arranging shapes

Circular arranging shapes

Automatic spacing and alignment with Smart Snapping options

Try it yourself

Summary

5

Node Editing – Modifying Your Shapes with Nodes and Curves

Editing shapes with the Node tool

Adding and removing nodes

Curve handles and node types

Breaking and joining lines

Drawing lines and shapes from scratch

Line styles

Classical drawing tools

Advanced curves and line options

Making brush strokes with Stroke Shape

Try it yourself

Summary

Part 2: Advanced Shape Editing

6

Fast Shape Editing with Path Operations and the Shape Builder Tool

Technical requirements

What are Booleans?

Exploring the Combine, Break Apart, Split Path, Fracture, and Flatten operations

Exploring the Inset, Outset, and Dynamic Offset Path operations

Fast Path operations with the Shape Builder tool

Try it yourself

Summary

7

Using Text in Inkscape

Installing new fonts

The Text tool

Font collections

The Text and Font dialog

Understanding variable fonts

Text on a curve

Flowing paragraphs into shapes

Check spelling and other handy tools

Try it yourself

Summary

8

Advanced Shading and Coloring

Technical requirements

The Gradient tool

The Gradient Editor

The Mesh Gradient tool

Pattern Fills

Using blur for complex shading

Color blending with Blend modes

Try it yourself

Summary

9

Clips and Masks

Technical requirements

Clips and clipping groups

Clips inside clips

Masking with vector shapes and images

Try it yourself

Summary

10

Automation with Clones and Linked Files

Technical requirements

What is a clone?

Cloning groups

Clones as clips and masks

Clone management using clones of clones

Leveraging linked image files

Try it yourself

Summary

Part 3: Inkscape’s Power Tools

11

Organization Using Layers

Technical requirements

What is a layer?

Understanding the Objects and Layers dialog

Organizing projects using groups and layers

Layer transparency and Blend modes

Cloning layers

Try it yourself

Summary

12

Live Path Effects

Technical requirements

What is a Path Effect, and why is it live?

The Path Effects dialog

Using Path Effects with single-path objects

Using Path Effects with groups

Stacking Path Effects

Limitations of Path Effects

Try it yourself

Summary

13

Filters and Extensions

Technical requirements

Using filters

Making custom filters

Using extensions

Try it yourself

Summary

14

Vectorizing with Trace Bitmap

Technical requirements

What is Trace Bitmap?

Vectorizing to black with the Single scan tab

Vectorizing to color shapes

Tracing parts of a bitmap with the Fill Bucket tool

Try it yourself

Summary

15

Document Properties, Pages, Exporting, and Printing

Technical requirements

The Document Properties dialog

The Pages tool

The Export dialog

Save and export considerations

Saving for printed magazine adverts

Saving and exporting for email-friendly PDFs

Exporting for the web

Saving for CNC cutters and engravers

Exporting for print-on-demand websites

Printing

Summary

Index

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Preface

With the power and versatility of the Inkscape software, making charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UI mockups with infinite resolution becomes enjoyable, and if you’re looking to get up to speed with vector illustration in no time, this comprehensive guide has got your back! Design Made Easy with Inkscape is easy to follow and teaches you everything you need to know to create graphics that you can use and reuse forever for free!

You’ll benefit from the author’s industry experience as you go over the basics of vector illustration, discovering tips and tricks for getting professional graphics done fast by leveraging Inkscape’s powerful toolset. This book teaches by example, using a great variety of use cases, from icons and logos to illustration, web design, and product design. You’ll learn about hotkey charts and take a best-practice approach developed over 10 years of using Inkscape as a design tool in production. What’s more, this book also includes links to free graphics resources that you can use in all your projects.

Whether you’re a new user or a professional, by the end of this book, you’ll fully understand how to use Inkscape and its myriad of excellent features to make stunning graphics for your projects.

Who this book is for

This book is for aspiring designers, developers, and anyone who wants to leverage the power of Inkscape for vector illustration. No prior knowledge of graphics applications or vector and raster graphics is required. This book simplifies Inkscape for the laymen; all you need to know is how to use a mouse and keyboard.

Wait, why is Inkscape free?

I’m glad you asked! There’s always some catch, isn’t there? Well, the truth is, Inkscape is different. It’s made by volunteers and even paid developers whose primary goal is to make software that everyone can use for free forever. The driving force for the development of Inkscape isn’t to make millions of dollars for some company but to make really good software in the spirit of sharing. That’s pretty much it! Inkscape is free because every member of the Inkscape project has core beliefs that user freedoms are of the utmost importance.

That’s cool, but why should I use Inkscape?

The aforementioned core beliefs also give Inkscape many advantages over alternatives, such as the following:

Inkscape respects your privacy: Inkscape will never collect personally identifiable information or try and push ads on you. The project is funded by donations and volunteer work and by self-funded developers, so no advertising revenue is needed. Such data collection is also seen as an invasion of privacy by many in the community, so it’s kept entirely out of Inkscape as a matter of principle.Inkscape breaks down international boundaries: Inkscape is available in every country of the world in a multitude of languages, with a lively and active community of contributors. No government in the world can shut down Inkscape because the source code is available everywhere for everyone to use however they like!Inkscape breaks down financial barriers: Inkscape is free for everyone to use, regardless of income. Moreover, Inkscape can be used to make money, learn design, and raise the quality of life for those who would otherwise be blocked by paywalls imposed by proprietary software vendors.Inkscape is completely cross platform: Because of its open source code, users of macOS, Windows, and Linux can compile Inkscape code into software that works the same across all three platforms. This means that you can work together regardless of the operating system you use. Thus, Inkscape is far better for collaboration than proprietary alternatives, many of which only cater to one or two operating systems.Inkscape is software made by designers: Some of our contributors are professional designers who help make Inkscape a better production tool, often requesting features unavailable in other software. This is originally what got me interested in Inkscape – it had features that were significantly better than even the most expensive paid programs.

To this day, there are still features that I’d love to see in Adobe Illustrator that Inkscape has had for years. I’ve helped add some of these features to Inkscape to save myself time in graphics production, but more importantly, to save everyone time!

Inkscape is free software: Not simply free as in no-cost, but free as in freedom. This comes from Inkscape’s license, called the GNU Public License (GPL). GPL software allows you to download, edit, use, and share Inkscape’s code for any purpose. Moreover, everyone who contributes to Inkscape must provide the source code under the same license. This ensures Inkscape will always be free and can never be locked down or put behind a paywall.Inkscape gives you control over your assets: Since there’s no paywall, graphics assets designed in Inkscape will always be free to open in Inkscape in an industry-standard SVG format, which is portable to other graphics applications.Inkscape is more fun: In addition to getting all the new features for free, you can even help test and improve brand-new features in development. You don’t need to be a programmer to do this and many new features are just fun to use. We will see a ton of them in this book, but the fact is more are added every year and it’s really exciting to be part of bringing that fun to people worldwide.Inkscape is a community-driven project: Inkscape is used by millions of people all over the globe! No matter what your skill level is, it’s easy and fun to be part of the community. The project has live chat boards to ask questions and thousands of active members across most major social media networks, including Facebook, Mastodon, Twitter, and so on.

There are even chat rooms where you can talk to the developers. Best of all, everyone is friendly and respectful. In fact, it’s a requirement! All of Inkscape’s forums are moderated to make sure everyone has a good time. It’s a great way to share art, tips and tricks, and design knowledge. Come be a part of the fun!

What this book covers

Chapter 1, The Inkscape Interface, gives you a tour of Inkscape’s menus, dialogs, parts, and controls.

Chapter 2, Moving and Styling Shapes, introduces you to shapes in Inkscape, transforming and styling them with stroke and fill.

Chapter 3, Drawing Shapes with the Shape Tools, shows you how to use Inkscape’s shape tools and options.

Chapter 4, Automatic Shape Alignment in Inkscape, helps us understand how to align shapes relative to each other and the page automatically.

Chapter 5, Node Editing – Modify Your Shapes with Nodes and Curves, helps us understand how to make custom shapes with Inkscape’s node editing tools.

Chapter 6, Fast Shape Editing with Path Operations and the Shape Builder Tool, uses open and closed shapes as tools to make more complex combinations of shapes quickly.

Chapter 7, Using Text in Inkscape, helps us understand how to add titles and paragraphs and wrap text around and through shapes.

Chapter 8, Advanced Shading and Coloring, deals with coloring techniques to achieve depth, shadows, and textures with gradients, blurs, and blending modes.

Chapter 9, Clips and Masks, uses shapes and images to cut and mask other shapes non-destructively.

Chapter 10, Automation with Clones and Linked Files, helps us understand how to set up super templates where one change to an object changes them throughout the document.

Chapter 11, Organization Using Layers, helps us understand how to show, hide, and organize parts of complex files using named layers.

Chapter 12, Live Path Effects, adds amazing non-destructive effects to your shapes for blazing-fast complex shape generation.

Chapter 13, Filters and Extensions, helps you to make your own filters and use extensions from the Inkscape community, added on to Inkscape for all manner of illustration fun.

Chapter 14, Vectorizing with Trace Bitmap, converts raster (pixel) images to vectors for advanced editing and super-fast illustrations.

Chapter 15, Document Properties, Pages, Exporting, and Printing, dives deep into getting the most out of your files from Inkscape.

To get the most out of this book

Although you can follow most of the lessons in this book with older versions of Inkscape, I’ve written this book specifically for the brand-spanking-new version, which is 1.3 at the time of writing. My aim is to give you the most value out of reading this book. There is a ton of new time-saving awesomeness in 1.3 that makes it worth the upgrade if you happen to be using an older version.

Software/hardware covered in the book

Operating system requirements

Inkscape 1.3

Windows, macOS, or Linux

You can download the latest version of Inkscape at https://www.inkscape.org, which contains installation instructions for your particular operating system.

Download the example files

You can download the example files for this book from GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Design-Made-Easy-with-Inkscape. If there’s an update to the code, it will be updated in the GitHub repository.

We also have other bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://packt.link/57GQC.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "The width value of your rectangle might be 300 pixels, cm, inches, and so on."

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: “Select Save as from the File menu.”

Tips or important notes

Appear like this.

Get in touch

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Part 1: Finding Your Way Around

This part will introduce readers to the Inkscape interface and show the various tools and dialogs, what they do, and how to use them.

There are the following chapters in this section:

Chapter 1, The Inkscape InterfaceChapter 2, Moving and Styling ShapesChapter 3, Drawing Shapes with the Shape ToolsChapter 4, Automatic Shape Alignment in InkscapeChapter 5, Node Editing – Modify Your Shapes with Nodes and Curves

1

The Inkscape Interface

There’s no doubt about it, Inkscape is a powerful design application. As such, there is a multitude of tools and functions to get the results you’re after. When you open Inkscape for the first time, it can seem a bit overwhelming. Worry not – we’ll have you up to speed in no time!

In this chapter, you will learn about the various parts of the Inkscape user interface, what they are used for, and how to navigate them. Knowing your way around will dramatically speed up your work in Inkscape, as you will spend less time searching for the tools you need, which of course leaves more time for using them.

By the end of this chapter, you should have a good idea of where to find things easily in Inkscape.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

Navigating the interfaceThe Menu barThe Tool bar and Tool control barThe Desk and Page areaThe Swatch PaletteThe Color IndicatorsThe Layer Info IndicatorThe Status barThe Docking area and dialogsThe Commands barThe Snap control barThe Display Transform Control

Technical requirements

To make the most of this chapter, you’ll need a computer running a recent version of Linux, macOS, or Windows.

You will, of course, also need a fresh copy of Inkscape 1.3, which you can download from the Inkscape website at www.inkscape.org (simply click the DOWNLOAD button and follow the instructions). As mentioned in the Preface, Inkscape is free to download and can be used for many purposes. Neat, huh?

I also highly recommend using a mouse as there are some functions tied to the mouse that are hard (or impossible) to do with a touchpad. Laptop trackpads are notoriously terrible for your wrists, and while they may suffice for casual mousing on the go, they are less precise and much harder on your wrists than a mouse for click-heavy graphic design tasks. As a laptop addict in university, I destroyed my wrists learning this lesson the hard way.

So, you can save yourself the medical bills and pain by investing in a good-quality mouse now. While I tend to recommend a Logitech mouse, even the cheapest off-brand mouse is better than the most expensive trackpad. If you can manage to get one with a third mouse button, then you get some nice extra functionality, such as being able to grab/pan the canvas just by holding it down.

Navigating the interface

The Inkscape user interface is broken up into panels that are organized like shelves for all the stuff you’ll be using throughout this book. We will provide plenty of screenshots so that you don’t have to memorize all the parts at this point. Think of this more as a guided tour than something to memorize and a reference for when you can’t quite remember what that thing was called. You know... that thing. The thingy with the buttons... Yeah, that one.

But before we dive into the parts of Inkscape, it will help a little to make sure we’re looking at the same Inkscape. I’ve opted to use light mode for the figures in this book, because it looks better in print, it saves ink (which is also eco-friendly), and smaller print tends to be easier to read.

By default, Inkscape’s got a brand-new, sexy dark mode. It’s fine to leave it that way if you like it – just be aware that the icons will be slightly different than the ones in this book. For those keen on having things look the same, you can switch out of Dark mode in the Startup dialog area (also known as the Welcome Screen area) by flipping the Darkmode switch, as shown in Figure 1.1:

Figure 1.1 – Switching out of dark mode in the Startup dialog (Welcome Screen)

I’ve also opted to use the classic Inkscape icons because they are easier to see and also make this book usable for legacy versions of Inkscape that predate the new icon themes. You can get them looking the same as they are in this book by using the Appearance dropdown beside the Dark mode switch, as shown in Figure 1.2:

Figure 1.2 – Changing the icon theme to Classic Inkscape

That certainly looks more like it! However, there’s one more gotcha; depending on how wide your screen is, Inkscape may look slightly different than in some of the screenshots in this book. For example, the laptop that I’m using to write this book is 3,840 x 2,160px, meaning it’s a widescreen format of ratio 16:9. The main difference between this and Inkscape’s default view is that the Commands bar is on the side of the screen rather than taking up space at the top.

Inkscape is smart enough to recognize my screen type and give me a wider view instead. Your view may be a bit different, so for consistency, you might want to switch the view to Wide instead. You can do this by clicking the View menu at the top of the screen and choosing Wide, as shown in Figure 1.3:

Figure 1.3 – Switching from the default view to the Wide view

Switching views is entirely optional and will not affect anything except the location of the Commands bar, which we will go over but not use very much as it’s far more efficient to use hotkeys for most of the items in this menu.

It also gets in the way of the much more useful Tool control bar, which we will use extensively, so I recommend pushing it to the side to preserve your vertical screen space for drawing and reduce clutter.

Have a look at Figure 1.4 for a breakdown of the parts. Here, I’ve cut up the Wide Screen interface into bits, spaced out so that you can see the different areas we’ll be discussing in this section better:

Figure 1.4 – Inkscape interface

Before we dive into the specifics of the various parts of the interface, it’s worthwhile going over some conventions that Inkscape uses to assist you in finding your way around:

Hover to discover: Hover your mouse cursor over an icon or box for a moment to see what it does (see Figure 1.5 for an example of hovering to discover more information):

Figure 1.5 – Hovering over a button shows its function

Hotkeys: A hotkey is a keyboard key (or a combination of them) that you can use to do something instantly rather than clicking through menus or looking through the icon bar. Inkscape will generally list the hotkey associated with the item, be it in the Menu bar or the hover information (Hover to discover, as mentioned in the previous bullet point).

The more you memorize these hotkeys, the faster you can work and the less time you will need to spend clicking around. Eventually, you’ll be able to think about doing something and do it simultaneously via hotkeys. A little time invested in doing this during your projects will save you untold amounts of time forever after.

Instant Search: As of Inkscape 1.1, there is a new Command Palette that can be called up with the Shift + ? hotkey. This is a search bar where you can type in what you want, and Inkscape will show you the results right away. This is a great way to find things quickly, and well worth remembering the hotkey. Got a question? Tap the Shift + ? hotkey, as shown in Figure 1.6:

Figure 1.6 – The Command Palette in action

Buttons: These require only a single click to perform the action. Some examples of these are the Save and Load buttons contained in the Command Palette, and the + and – keys located inside the Spin Boxes, which allow you to increment the value in the box.Toggles: These have the same appearance as buttons, but instead of performing a one-time function, they activate or deactivate something. They appear often in the Tool control bar, where you can see which tool or snapping options are active at a glance. They have two states – onand off.

When toggled on, the background of the icon will go a few shades darker to indicate that the button is depressed. Pressing it again when it’s in this state toggles it off again, and the dark background will disappear. See Figure 1.7 for examples of toggles and buttons in Inkscape:

Figure 1.7 – Toggles versus buttons

Spin Boxes: These are boxes that contain numeric values that can be incremented or decremented using the + and – buttons contained in them. Pressing the + button increments, while – decrements. You can also click inside the box to edit the value manually.

Here are a few neat tricks to use with Spin Boxes:

Double-click inside the Spin Box to highlight the integer part or the decimal part of the number. You can then start typing a new value and it will overwrite the highlighted part of the number.Triple-click inside the Spin Box to highlight the entire number. As before, you can type in a new value. You can also copy and paste the value by using the Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V hotkeys.Calculate by using math operators in the Spin Box. That’s right! You can add, subtract, multiply, and divide right in the Spin Box and Inkscape will change your math into a number once you hit the Enter key. No calculator is required! Some examples can be seen in Figure 1.8:

Figure 1.8 – Spin Box math operations table

Convert from one measurement into another by adding the units to the number. For example, if you are working in centimeters (cm) and are making something that needs to be 24 inches, you can convert it into cm just by typing 24in into the Spin Box and tapping the Enter key when you’re done:

Figure 1.9 – Spin Box converting inches into centimeters

Select a preset by right-clicking the Spin Box and choosing a value from the menu that pops up:

Figure 1.10 – Right-clicking a Spin Box pops up useful default options

So, with all these little tips and tricks for getting around, are we ready for the grand tour? Great! Let’s start with an old familiar friend, the Menu bar.

The Menu bar

You’re probably familiar with this bar as it’s a staple of most desktop applications. Whenever you want to find something, it’s usually organized into menus at the top of the screen (see Figure 1.11):

Figure 1.11 – Inkscape’s Menu items

While this certainly seems like a lot of information, you will see that everything is sorted logically, and once you get used to where things are, it will become second nature. For now, here are some examples of the kinds of things you can find in each menu:

File: Contains entries related to loading and saving files, printing, cleaning up, and changing the properties of your document.Edit: This menu contains copy, paste, and select actions, as well as the Inkscape Preferences dialog.View: This menu features zoom controls, display modes, and a variety of customization options to show and hide pieces of the Inkscape user interface.Layer: This menu houses layer controls and shortcuts. This menu also brings up the Layers dialog. You will likely use the Layers dialog more often than the items in this menu, but they are still a good reference for the hotkeys to raise and lower layers, and so on.Objects: This menu includes a myriad of useful tools for interacting with objects, including raising and lowering them in the object stack (more on that later). This menu also brings up the Objects dialog, the Align and Distribute dialog, and the Arrange dialog, all of which we will cover in later chapters.Path: This is a veritable toolbox of functions for editing the nodes and curves (lines/strokes) of your shapes, as well as for converting from an object into a path to make shapes editable. There are also useful path operations to add, remove, and cut shapes using other shapes. We’ll spend a good deal of time in this menu as it contains fast ways to get the shapes we want to make without the need to edit them node by node.Text: This menu can be used to bring up the Text and Font dialog, attach text to paths, flow text through objects so your paragraphs take on the shape of non-rectangle objects, and, of course, the all-important Check Spelling dialog.Filters: In addition to constructing shapes, Inkscape makes it possible to add effects to them. It’s best to use the effects in this menu sparingly for a variety of reasons. However, there are some neat effects here and the ability to build your own, so we’ll have some fun with that later.Extensions: Inkscape supports extensions written in the programming language Python. Writing these is beyond the scope of this book, but I’ll take you on a guided tour of the fabulous extensions that come with Inkscape so you can do awesome things such as generate barcodes and QR codes, change the colors of your shapes and objects as you would do in photo-editing software, and so on.Help: This menu contains a great collection of quick links for learning Inkscape basics, getting help, and even chatting with Inkscape community members in real time on the Inkscape chat server. The manual is a bit outdated at the time of writing this book but contains a lot of useful information nonetheless.

Note

In this book and online forums, it’s common to use > to indicate the way to get to a menu item. For example, instead of saying “go to the top Menu bar and click on the Edit menu, then click on the Paste Size option, then click on the Paste Width option,” we instead say Edit > Paste Size > Paste Width.

Much easier to read, isn’t it? It’s also easier to type and remember, and generally saves everyone involved a ton of time.

That about wraps it up for the Menu bar. Next, we’ll have a look at the Tool bar and Tool control bar.

The Tool bar and Tool control bar

These two go hand in hand. The tools are on the left, and the controls for the tools are at the top. When you choose a tool from the bar on the left, the Tool control bar will display all the options for that tool. For example, if you choose the Star and Polygon tool, the Tool control bar area displays the number of points, whether it’s a star or a polygon, and even the rounding of the points! Changing to the Text tool shows all the various fonts, letters, line and character spacing, and so on.

When the Star and Polygon tool is selected, the Tool control bar shows options for the tool, such as how many corners the star has, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.12 – The Star and Polygon tool

Double-clicking on a tool in the Tool bar will bring up options for that tool (see Figure 1.13), including Last used style, which you’ll probably want to turn on so that Inkscape remembers the fill color and stroke thickness of the last shape you drew, the last font you used for text, and so on. Double-clicking a tool brings up the Preferences dialog for that tool:

Figure 1.13 – Star tool Preferences dialog

We’ll be exploring the various options for each of these tools in detail in the next chapters, but for now, let’s move on to the main event – the Desk and Page areas.

The Desk and Page areas

This area, shown in Figure 1.14, is where you’ll be drawing with the various tools in the Tool bar. The Page area, by default, is an A4-sized page but can be changed by selecting File > Document Properties or pressing Ctrl + Shift + D:

Figure 1.14 – The Desk area with a few shapes drawn on the Page area

Although you can draw anywhere in the Desk area, the Page area is a good place to keep your main graphics. It’s what will appear in the thumbnail preview of your file browser and web browser, or what someone will see when they open that PDF you saved. It’s also the region that is exported when choosing the Page option in the PNG Export dialog (more on that later).

Here are some tips for navigating the Desk and Page areas:

Zoom in and out: Hold the Ctrl key and use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out. If your computer supports a touch screen, you can also pinch to zoom, or use the + and – keys as well. There is also a Zoom tool in the Tool bar that looks like a magnifying glass, but with all these great ways to zoom without switching tools, I recommend the other methods.Panning the view: Moving the view from side to side or up and down is called panning. Sure, you can drag the tiny scrollbars at the bottom and left-hand side of the canvas, but you could also just hold the spacebar down, which will grab the canvas and move it as you move the mouse.

Holding the middle mouse button also works if you have one, but once you get used to the spacebar method, it’s going to be your go-to method of panning. You will wish your other applications did the same after a while.

The context menu: What if you didn’t have to move your mouse off the canvas to access some of the Menu bar items? Even better, what if you could just right-click on the canvas, or an object on the canvas and instantly be offered a subset of actions just for that kind of object? Well, that’s exactly what the context menu is for! Simply right-click on the Desk, Page, or any selected object and you will be presented with a choice assortment of useful things, as you can see in Figure 1.15:

Figure 1.15 – Right-clicking this selection brings up the context menu for what is selected

So, now that you know how to get around the Desk area, let’s have a look at some ways you can color your shapes with the Swatch Palette.

The Swatch Palette

As shown in Figure 1.16, the Swatch Palette is good for quick coloring. Clicking one of these will fill any selected shape with that color:

Figure 1.16 – The Swatch Palette

Likewise, holding Shift and clicking a swatch will assign a stroke of that color, or you can right-click a swatch and choose Set stroke from the popover menu. Clicking the hamburger menu (the one with three lines) on the far right will give you option to see more colors and switch between palettes. Also, the up and down arrow buttons to the left of the hamburger menu will scroll up and down the available swatches in the currently selected palette, as will hovering the mouse cursor over the swatches and using the mouse wheel.

In Inkscape 1.3, you may notice that the first swatches on the left are larger than the rest. These are pinned colors, and you can add and remove them from this area to save your favorites. Say, for example, you really like the brightest red, and you’d like it to be pinned. Simply right-click on the red swatch and choose Pin color from the menu that pops up, as shown in Figure 1.17.

Figure 1.17 – Pinning colors to the Pinned Colors area

The color indicators

The color indicators indicate the Fill and Stroke (outline) colors for the selected shape. These indicators will be blank (and show N/A, which is short for not applicable) until a shape is selected. Clicking the color bar will bring up the Fill and Stroke dialog for more options, as well as a variety of color pickers to choose custom colors.

Right-clicking the color bars will bring up a menu of nice presets, as well as the ability to copy, paste, and swap colors between fills and strokes, as shown in Figure 1.18:

Figure 1.18 – Fill and stroke indicators (left) and the options you get after right-clicking the Fill or Stroke color bars (right)

Next to the Stroke color bar is a number representing the stroke’s width (0.638 in this case). Clicking that number will open the Stroke Style tab in the Fill and Stroke dialog, where you can change its value.

The O: value to the right of the stroke’s width in the box is the opacity value, which controls the transparency/opacity of the selected object. This value corresponds to the opacity slider at the bottom of the Fill and Stroke dialog. You can use either one to change this opacity value.

Those are the basics of the color indicators, but you’ll notice there are more options directly to the right. Let’s see what the Layer Info Indicator is all about, shall we?

The Layer Info Indicator

These are just a few quick-access tools (see Figure 1.19) for working with the currently selected layer or group. These controls are also available in the Layers dialog and Objects dialog, which we will discuss later:

Figure 1.19 – Layer Info Indicator

Clicking the Eyeball Toggle icon will hide or show the current layer or group, and the Lock Toggle icon will lock or unlock it. Locking a layer means you cannot select it, which is nice for working on top of background shapes that you don’t want to accidentally select. You can also click the layer name, and the Layers and Objects dialog will appear with the current layer and object selected.

Further to the right is a space filled with a message – this is the Status bar.

The Status bar

A much-overlooked area of the interface, this readout shows useful information about the current state of Inkscape (see Figure 1.20):

Figure 1.20 – The Status bar – an invaluable source of information

This area shows different things, depending on what’s selected:

When no shapes are selected, the Status bar contains useful tips about the active tool.When an object is selected, the Status bar shows what the object type is and information about the object.When a path is selected, the Status bar shows how many nodes are in the current path.When a group is selected the Status bar shows how many objects and paths the group contains, and whether it contains other groups.When an image is selected, the Status bar shows the dimensions of the image in pixels, and whether the image is linked or embedded in the document.When something goes wrong – for example, you’ve tried to subtract one shape from another using path operations, and one of the objects isn’t a path. Inkscape will show an error message here reminding you that one of your shapes is an object and will not work for this operation until you convert it (more on this later).

Now, let’s take a look at the Docking area and dialogs.

The Docking area and dialogs

This area, featured in Figure 1.21, will show all dialogs you call up, and provides a customizable space where you can keep one or more of them handy while you work:

Figure 1.21 – The Docking area, shown here with the Fill and Stroke and Layers and Objects dialogs

When opening Inkscape for the first time, you may not see any dialog boxes. There are various ways of summoning these dialogs, such as clicking the Fill and Stroke color bars (as mentioned previously), or by using equivalent options in the Menu bar (Object > Fill and Stroke, for example).

You can click and drag the tabs at the top of each dialog to rearrange them in the Docking area, and as of Inkscape 1.1, you can even dock them to the other side of the screen next to your Tool bar if you wish.

Notice the three dots on the left-hand side of the dialogs. This is a handle, which you may use to resize the dialogs. Handles are also present between each dialog for the same purpose.

Tip

At the time of writing, developers are working hard to shrink the area needed for some of the wider dialogs. Meanwhile, you can also drag out a dialog into a floating window and then close it. Inkscape will remember your preference and will float the dialog when you call it up again so that it does not constantly use up space in your dock. The F12 key also toggles the Docking area on and off