The Book of Inkscape

475 Pages·2009·11.818 MB·English

by  Dmitry Kirsanov

THE BOOK OF™ INKSCAPE

THE BOOK OF
™
INKSCAPE
The Definitive Guide
to the Free Graphics Editor
by Dmitry Kirsanov
San Francisco
THE BOOK OF INKSCAPE. Copyright © 2009 by Dmitry Kirsanov.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic
or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior
written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher.
13 12 11 10 09 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
ISBN-10: 1-59327-181-6
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-181-7
Publisher: William Pollock
Production Editor: Megan Dunchak
Cover Design: Octopod Studios
Developmental Editor: Tyler Ortman
Technical Reviewers: Tim Cole and Joshua A. Andler
Copyeditors: Kathleen Mish and Megan Dunchak
Compositor: Alina Kirsanova
Proofreader: Alina Kirsanova
For information on book distributors or translations, please contact No Starch Press, Inc. directly:
No Starch Press, Inc.
555 De Haro Street, Suite 250, San Francisco, CA 94107
phone: [phone]; fax: [phone]; [email protected]; www.nostarch.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Kirsanov, Dmitry.
The book of Inkscape : the definitive guide to the free graphics editor / Dmitry Kirsanov.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-59327-181-7
ISBN-10: 1-59327-181-6
1. Computer graphics. 2. Inkscape (Electronic resource) I. Title.
T385.K491256 2009
006.6'8--dc22
2009023973
No Starch Press and the No Starch Press logo are registered trademarks of No Starch Press, Inc. “The Book of” is a
trademark of No Starch Press, Inc. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of
their respective owners. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we are
using the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement
of the trademark.
The information in this book is distributed on an “As Is” basis, without warranty. While every precaution has been
taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author nor No Starch Press, Inc. shall have any liability to any person
or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information
contained in it.
BRIEF CONTENTS
Acknowledgments........................................................................................................... xvii
Introduction.................................................................................................................... xix
Chapter 1 Inkscape and the World ................................................................................. 1
Chapter 2 An Inkscape Primer ....................................................................................... 17
Chapter 3 Setting Up and Moving Around ...................................................................... 35
Chapter 4 Objects ........................................................................................................ 51
Chapter 5 Selecting ...................................................................................................... 67
Chapter 6 Transforming ................................................................................................ 81
Chapter 7 Snapping and Arranging .............................................................................. 99
Chapter 8 Styling ..........................................................................................................117
Chapter 9 Stroke and Markers .......................................................................................135
Chapter 10 Gradients and Patterns ................................................................................149
Chapter 11 Shapes .......................................................................................................165
Chapter 12 Editing Paths ...............................................................................................187
Chapter 13 Path Effects and Extensions ..........................................................................213
Chapter 14 Drawing .....................................................................................................237
Chapter 15 Text ............................................................................................................255
Chapter 16 Clones ........................................................................................................271
Chapter 17 Filters .........................................................................................................285
Chapter 18 Bitmaps ......................................................................................................303
Chapter 19 Tutorial: Designing a Business Card ..............................................................321
Chapter 20 Tutorial: Creating an Animation ...................................................................329
Chapter 21 Tutorial: Drawing a 3D-Correct Cartoon .......................................................337
Chapter 22 Tutorial: Artistic Drawing .............................................................................343
Chapter 23 Tutorial: Technical Drawing ..........................................................................349
Chapter 24 Tutorial: The Rose ........................................................................................357
Appendix A An SVG Primer ..........................................................................................369
Appendix B Import and Export ......................................................................................383
Appendix C The Command Line .....................................................................................391
Appendix D Keyboard Shortcuts ....................................................................................399
Index ..............................................................................................................................427
Color Illustrations ..................................................................................... following page 212
vi Brief Contents
CONTENTS IN DETAIL
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvii
INTRODUCTION xix
What’s in This Book? ....................................................................................................... xx
Who Is This Book For? ..................................................................................................... xx
1
INKSCAPE AND THE WORLD 1
1.1 What Vector Graphics Is and Why It Matters .............................................................. 1
1.2 What Can You Do with Inkscape? .............................................................................. 5
1.3 Sources of Inkscape Art ............................................................................................ 7
1.4 A Brief History of SVG .............................................................................................. 8
1.5 Inkscape and Its Competition ..................................................................................... 10
1.5.1 Adobe Illustrator ..................................................................................... 10
1.5.2 CorelDRAW ............................................................................................ 12
1.5.3 Xara ....................................................................................................... 13
1.5.4 . . . and Inkscape .................................................................................... 14
1.6 The Life of an Open Source Application ..................................................................... 15
2
AN INKSCAPE PRIMER 17
2.1 Installing Inkscape .................................................................................................... 17
2.2 Inkscape’s “Hello, World!” ........................................................................................ 19
2.3 Interface Overview ................................................................................................... 21
2.4 Panning and Zooming .............................................................................................. 23
2.5 Creating Objects ...................................................................................................... 23
2.6 Selecting ................................................................................................................. 26
2.7 Transforming ........................................................................................................... 27
2.8 Styling ..................................................................................................................... 29
2.9 Saving and Exporting ............................................................................................... 31
2.10 A Final Example ..................................................................................................... 32
3
SETTING UP AND MOVING AROUND 35
3.1 Preferences .............................................................................................................. 35
3.1.1 Inkscape Preferences ............................................................................... 36
3.1.2 Document Properties ................................................................................ 37
3.2 Document Templates ................................................................................................. 37
3.3 Keyboard Setup ....................................................................................................... 39
3.4 Page Setup .............................................................................................................. 39
3.4.1 Document Units ....................................................................................... 40
3.4.2 Background ............................................................................................ 40
3.4.3 Page Size ............................................................................................... 40
3.5 Instances, Documents, Views ..................................................................................... 41
3.6 The Document Window ............................................................................................ 42
3.6.1 Window Geometry .................................................................................. 43
3.7 Dialogs ................................................................................................................... 44
3.8 Basic Zooming ......................................................................................................... 45
3.9 The Zoom Tool ......................................................................................................... 46
3.10 Panning ................................................................................................................. 47
3.11 Rendering Modes ................................................................................................... 48
4
OBJECTS 51
4.1 Object Properties ..................................................................................................... 51
4.2 The Bounding Box .................................................................................................... 53
4.3 Z-Order ................................................................................................................... 55
4.4 Copying, Cutting, Pasting, and Duplicating ................................................................ 56
4.5 Groups .................................................................................................................... 57
4.5.1 Uses of Grouping .................................................................................... 58
4.5.2 Groups and Z-Order ............................................................................... 59
4.6 Layers ..................................................................................................................... 59
4.6.1 Layer Hierarchy ....................................................................................... 60
4.6.2 The Layer Menu ...................................................................................... 61
4.6.3 The Current Layer Indicator ...................................................................... 62
4.6.4 The Layers Dialog .................................................................................... 62
4.7 The XML Editor ......................................................................................................... 63
5
SELECTING 67
5.1 The Selection Cue ..................................................................................................... 67
5.2 Selection and the Status Bar ...................................................................................... 68
5.3 Subselection ............................................................................................................. 69
5.4 Selecting by Clicking: The Selector ............................................................................. 70
5.5 Selecting by Clicking: Other Tools .............................................................................. 71
5.6 Adding to a Selection ............................................................................................... 71
5.7 Selecting with the Rubber Band ................................................................................. 71
5.8 Touch Selection ........................................................................................................ 72
5.9 Selecting Objects from Underneath ............................................................................ 73
5.10 Selecting in Groups ................................................................................................ 74
5.11 Selecting with Keyboard Shortcuts ........................................................................... 75
5.12 Finding Objects ...................................................................................................... 76
5.13 Following Links ...................................................................................................... 78
5.14 Deselecting ............................................................................................................ 78
5.15 Selection Miscellany ............................................................................................... 79
6
TRANSFORMING 81
6.1 The Selector: Moving ................................................................................................ 81
6.2 The Selector: Scaling ................................................................................................ 83
6.3 The Selector: Rotating and Skewing ........................................................................... 84
6.4 Center of Rotation .................................................................................................... 85
viii Contents in Detail