INKSCAPE Prepared by K. Srujana INTRODUCTION Inkscape began in 2003 as a code fork of the Sodipodia project. Sodipodi, developed since 1999, was itself based on Rsph Levien's Gill (Gnome Illustration Application). The name Inkscape is made up of the two English words "ink" and "scape". Ink is a common substance for drawings, and is used when the sketched work is ready to be permanently committed to paper, and thus evokes the idea that Inkscape is ready for production work. A scape is a view of a large number of objects, such as a landscape or ocean-scape, and thus alludes to the objectoriented nature of vector imagery. 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. 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 rotating, stretching and sudden changes in direction or position. One of the main priorities of the Inkscape project is interface consistency and usability. All vector transformations, scale, rotation and positioning (minus skewing) have keyboard shortcuts. These keys work on nodes in Node tool as well as on objects in the Selector Tool. The most common operations have onekey shortcuts. COMPONENTS OF INKSCAPE MENU BAR Inkscape Menu contains the essential functions of any program, those which concern the application itself. There are 165 options in menu bar. To create a new empty document, we use File > New > Default or press Ctrl+N.
To create a new document from one of Inkscape's options, use File > New or press Ctrl+Alt+N To open an existing SVG document, use File > Open (Ctrl+O). To save, use File > Save (Ctrl+S), or Save As (Shift+Ctrl+S) to save under a new name. Inkscape uses the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format for its files. Besides SVG, Inkscape can import and export several other formats (EPS, PNG). Inkscape opens a separate window for each clipart. You can navigate among them using your window manager (e.g. by Alt+Tab), or you can use the Inkscape shortcut, Ctrl+Tab, which will cycle through all open document windows. (Create a new document now and switch between it and this document for practice). Inkscape treats these windows like tabs in a web browser, which means the Ctrl+Tab shortcut only works with documents running in the same process. We use trace bitmap option to trace or convert the original image into shaded or cutoff brightness or color image or into a gray image, it's keyboard shortcut is Shift+Alt+B. We can group or ungroup the number of objects using group option. We can change the text format and size of the text from text options. We can extend the colors in the extension option and if we have any doubts we can clarify them by watching tutorials which are provided in help option. COMMAND BAR Command bar contains icons which are shortcuts to commands which are otherwise accessible from the menus or shortcut key commands. There are 26 shortcut icons on command bar. a. Create New Document From the Default Template. b. Open an Existing Document. c. Save Document. d. Print Document. e. Import a Bitmap or an SVG File Into this Document. f. Export This Document or Selection as a Bitmap Image. g. Undo the Last Action. h. Do Again the Last Undone Action. i. Copy Selection to Clipboard. j. Cut Selection to Clipboard.
k. Paste Objects from Clipboard to Mouse Point, or Paste Text. l. Zoom to Fit Selection in Window. m. Zoom to Fit Drawing in Window. n. Zoom to Fit Page in Window. q. Cut the Selected Clone's Link to it's Original. r. Group Selected Objects. s. Ungroup Selected Objects. t. Edit Objects' Style, Such as Color or Stroke Width. u. View and Select Font Family, Font Size and Other Text Properties. v. View Layers. w. View and Edit the XML Tree of this Document. x. Align and Distribute Objects. y. Edit Global Inkscape Preferences. z. Edit Properties of this Document. CANVAS It is the most central and important part of the interface, since it is here that the drawing is created and viewed. It is located in the middle of the window and is represented as a blank "page" with open space around it. TOOL BAR AND TOOL CONTROLS BAR The Toolbox consist of vertically aligned buttons located on the left of the window. It contains a basic set of drawing utilities, in particular for creating and editing shapes. There are controls for geometric and free-form shapes and lines, text, and fills (colors). Located directly under the Commands Bar is the Tool Controls Bar. When a tool is selected in the Toolbox, the Tool Controls Bar changes to show particular options associated with that tool. COLOR PALETTE, FILL & STROKE The color palette consists of different colors along with shades which we can see below the canvas.
Fill and Stroke consists of FILL, STROKE PAINT, STROKE STYLE where we change the size, color, corners of any object. We can also change the picture's opacity and blur of an image. We can change the color formats like RGB (Red, Green, Blue), HSL(HueSaturation-Lightness), CMYK(Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key), Wheel, CMS. It also displays the gradient options. In stroke style we can select whether the corners should be sharp or round corners. We can resize the width of a stroke. LAYER COMMANDS WITH HELP BARS Layer Commands is located at the bottom end of the screen. These are used to add or delete layers of images where we can assign a name. There are also options called visibility (eye) to make the layer visible or invisible, and lock to lock the layers which we dont want to alter. HOW TO USE INKSCAPE In Inkscape we have 19 tools. They are 1. Select and transform objects (F1) This tool is used to select objects. Using this tool, we can add or remove objects from selection. We can move and resize the objects using this tool. 2. Editing paths by nodes (F2) This tool is one of the most important tools. Each object is held together by multiple nodes and using this tool we can move the nodes (for example, we can change a straight line into a curve). For this tool we have different options which will be displayed in the Control Tool bar. Using those options we can add nodes, subtract nodes, join nodes, join nodes with new segments, split path between two non-endpoint nodes (If there are 2 points in the middle of a line, the segment between them is removed), break path at selected node, make selected node corner, smooth or symmetric. Editing paths
3. Tweak objects by sculpting or painting (Shift+F2) Using this circle-shaped tool we can push, shrink/grow, attract/repel, roughen, edit the image colour, blur the image, and many more. We can also change the tool's width and force applied on the object using options on the top left. Tweak Tool 4. Create rectangles and squares (F4) This simple tool can create rectangles and squares. 5. Zoom in or out (F3) Using this tool, we can zoom in and zoom out as we like to. There are also options which allow us to zoom in with a ratio or position the screen in a particular part of the canvas. 6. Create 3D boxes (Shift+F4) This tools is used for drawing, moving and editing a 3D box. 3D Boxes Stars and polygons 7. Create circles, ellipses, and arcs (F5) This tool is used to create different kinds of cirlces, ellipses and arcs. Using edit path by nodes tool we can change a circle into different shapes. 8. Create stars and polygons (*) Using this tool we can create stars with any number of corners. We can change the shapes of stars and polygons by moving inner and outer nodes of the star. We can form different patterns using this option.
9. Create spirals (F9) Using this tool we can create and edit spirals. Each spiral has an outer and an inner nodes which are used to increase the length of spirals according to our choice. 10. Draw freehand lines (F6) We can also call this tool pencil, as we can use this tool for free hand drawings. Spirals Pencil and Pen tools 11. Draw bezier curves and straight lines (Shift+F6) This tool is also called pen. Using this tool we can draw a curve, delete a curve and continue the path of curve. Multiple 2D shapes can also be constructed using this tool. 12. Draw calligraphic or brush strokes (Ctrl+F6) This tool acts like a paint brush. 13. Create and edit text objects (F8) Using this tool we can insert text in any font style. 14. Spray objects by sculpting or painting (Shift+F3) Calligraphic strokes Using this tool we can duplicate an object or text a number of times, which we have selected before using this tool. 15. Erase existing paths (Shift+E) This tool is used to erase the objects. 16. Fill bounded areas (Shift+F7) Gradients This tool can be used to fill a closed object with any selected colour.
17. Create and edit gradients (Ctrl+F1) We use this tool to create gradients having different patterns with any selected colours. We can use only two colors in a single gradient. 18. Pick colors from image (F7) We can use this tool to pick an exact shade/color which we have used in another object. This picked colour can be applied in a selected image using Fill bounded areas. 19. Create diagram connectors (Ctrl+F2) Using this tool we can connect multiple objects and then rearrange them however we want to. This option can be helpful while constructing flowcharts. HOW TO MAKE A CLIPART An Example: Here is an example clip art using basic tools. Step 1: Write a word ( Water in this case) in the middle of the canvas and give it a colour of your choice. Step 2: Now duplicate that word using the keyboard shortcut Shift+D and change the color of that word to black. Step 3: Using lower section bottom(end) icon in tool control bar it places the selected word bottom of other words as it is in the screenshot.
Step 4: Draw an oval and select the lower section bottom(end) icon on the Tool Control Bar and make sure that the color of the circle is white. Step 5: Draw a rectangle which should cover the whole word with the oval, and use the same lower section bottom(end) icon on Tool Control Bar. Step 6: To get the lighting effect we have to blur the oval such that it looks like light. To blur the image, we have to open Fill and Stroke (Shift+Ctrl+F) and adjust its blur.