I entered some text earlier today and stroked that text, then used the Stroke to Path option. That turned the stroke into a strokeable object and the fill disappeared. My final result (with an underlying filled font) is shown in the example below. Suddenly that process is not working. The fill does not disappear and the stroke cannot be stroked. What happened?
In an attempt to troubleshoot this myself, I discovered that switching to a different font solved the problem. Sort of. I want to use the original font (Tonopah.ttf). After trying single letters in a variety of fonts, I found that some worked. Some don't. By then Tonopah was working as a single letter. Still not good enough.
Then I switched to a five letter word. Some fonts work, some don't. Right now Tonopah does not.
Any idea why this is so wiggy?
BTW, on some trials I tried converting the (text) object to path before stroking and that made no discernible difference.
Could you share an SVG file that shows this problem? I have an idea what might be happening, but I can't test locally, because I don't immediately know which fonts to use (I mean fonts that I already have). But if you can share an SVG file, I'll have your fonts.
I suspect is has to do with how certain fonts are made. But again, it's hard to test without some examples.
Is your goal to create the outline around each letter? Or is that outline part of the font?
Well, rats! Apparently, since it was not working, I didn't save that file, so I just recreated it. Except I maybe didn't. Everything works fine now. In the interim I've created half a dozen other images, for whatever that may be worth. For good measure, I successfully ran the process with a second font, which is probably on that was acting wiggy. I still need to tweak outline sizes on the Tonopah selection before I'm happy with it.
Perhaps as I tweak outline sizes, flukes will recur. Let us play, pray or pay, or something.
BTW the outline is NOT part of the font. An outline version of the font is available, but scaling up the size does not maintain a precise fit around smaller size. This process seems to be the only path that works:
Type text
Adjust horizontal spacing to allow room for thicker outlines
Clone the word(s). The base word provides fill when the top fill dissolves in step #5.
Apply Outline #1 to top word and adjust color and thickness.
Apply Stroke to Path.
Apply Outline #2 to new Path. Scale down to reveal Outline #1.
Hhmm, well my theory that I would have access to the font, through the file, was proved wrong. But I found tonopah.ttf as a free font, so I installed it.
Oh ok, I see what you're doing now! I didn't clearly understand at first.
Are you saying that the problem is not happening currently? We'll keep our fingers crossed that it stays that way. Tonopah is the one that wasn't working before, right?
I notice in your steps, if I follow them strictly, you try to apply a stroke to the clone. And that won't work. (The clone can only be edited by editing its parent.) So I need to avoid the clone, in one way or another (convert it back to text, use duplicate instead, etc.)
At the moment, I'm thinking you may have sometimes had the wrong thing selected, and that's why it was not working correctly. I know it gets very confusing sometimes, when you have identical objects on top of each other. It's hard to know which one is selected....well, sometimes it's even hard to select. At least it happens to me a lot, haha!
But definitely let us know if the problem comes back or if you find some new info, or have more questions.
You may have something there regarding clones. Oddly enough, I only learned about that limitation after posting that question. But the dots did not connect until you mentioned it in this context. That could explain why Stroke to Path did work fine on samples where I used a single layer of text without duplicating. One could take the precaution of unlinking the clone.
Even so, I don't think that was the problem. I just checked the icons for copying/cloning, Pressing Ctrl+D (Duplicate) has been automatic for me for decades and stuck around for maybe five years. I've probably used that Ctrl+D shortcut with at least a dozen graphics programs over the years, beginning with CorelDraw that entered my world over twenty years ago. Alt+D (Clone) would take conscious thought and intent. That involves thumb action rather than little finger. Not totally out of the question, but highly unlikely.
Toponah was not the only font that misbehaved. I tried several chunky fonts from my vast collection. Now, in an attempt to replicate the problem, I started working my way through a list. When I got to BlackOak Std, it recurred. Using a single B for simplicity, and not duplicating (I am interested in whether the fill disappears in the Stroke to Path process) I went through the drill of stroking, adjusting, then clicking Stroke to Path. The fill stayed intact. Alarms went off. However ... I clicked on the new stroke object and moved it aside. It was empty, though the original letter remained intact. Hmm.
Continuing with the experiment, I tried Tonoopah again. The fill remained and the stroke stuck. Ditto with Fat Marker. Then I went back to Tonopah with BAT. Success. Who knows? My finger routine remained unchanged.
File attached.
P.S. In case anyone wonders why some gold outlines have black borders and some don't, I did not bother with the second round of stroking on some of those examples.The focus was succesfully converting the stroke to a path.
Beyond the Basics Stroke to path not working on text
Inkscape.org
I entered some text earlier today and stroked that text, then used the Stroke to Path option. That turned the stroke into a strokeable object and the fill disappeared. My final result (with an underlying filled font) is shown in the example below. Suddenly that process is not working. The fill does not disappear and the stroke cannot be stroked. What happened?
In an attempt to troubleshoot this myself, I discovered that switching to a different font solved the problem. Sort of. I want to use the original font (Tonopah.ttf). After trying single letters in a variety of fonts, I found that some worked. Some don't. By then Tonopah was working as a single letter. Still not good enough.
Then I switched to a five letter word. Some fonts work, some don't. Right now Tonopah does not.
Any idea why this is so wiggy?
BTW, on some trials I tried converting the (text) object to path before stroking and that made no discernible difference.
Could you share an SVG file that shows this problem? I have an idea what might be happening, but I can't test locally, because I don't immediately know which fonts to use (I mean fonts that I already have). But if you can share an SVG file, I'll have your fonts.
I suspect is has to do with how certain fonts are made. But again, it's hard to test without some examples.
Is your goal to create the outline around each letter? Or is that outline part of the font?
Well, rats! Apparently, since it was not working, I didn't save that file, so I just recreated it. Except I maybe didn't. Everything works fine now. In the interim I've created half a dozen other images, for whatever that may be worth. For good measure, I successfully ran the process with a second font, which is probably on that was acting wiggy. I still need to tweak outline sizes on the Tonopah selection before I'm happy with it.
Perhaps as I tweak outline sizes, flukes will recur. Let us play, pray or pay, or something.
BTW the outline is NOT part of the font. An outline version of the font is available, but scaling up the size does not maintain a precise fit around smaller size. This process seems to be the only path that works:
Hhmm, well my theory that I would have access to the font, through the file, was proved wrong. But I found tonopah.ttf as a free font, so I installed it.
Oh ok, I see what you're doing now! I didn't clearly understand at first.
Are you saying that the problem is not happening currently? We'll keep our fingers crossed that it stays that way. Tonopah is the one that wasn't working before, right?
I notice in your steps, if I follow them strictly, you try to apply a stroke to the clone. And that won't work. (The clone can only be edited by editing its parent.) So I need to avoid the clone, in one way or another (convert it back to text, use duplicate instead, etc.)
At the moment, I'm thinking you may have sometimes had the wrong thing selected, and that's why it was not working correctly. I know it gets very confusing sometimes, when you have identical objects on top of each other. It's hard to know which one is selected....well, sometimes it's even hard to select. At least it happens to me a lot, haha!
But definitely let us know if the problem comes back or if you find some new info, or have more questions.
Hey Brynn,
You may have something there regarding clones. Oddly enough, I only learned about that limitation after posting that question. But the dots did not connect until you mentioned it in this context. That could explain why Stroke to Path did work fine on samples where I used a single layer of text without duplicating. One could take the precaution of unlinking the clone.
Even so, I don't think that was the problem. I just checked the icons for copying/cloning, Pressing Ctrl+D (Duplicate) has been automatic for me for decades and stuck around for maybe five years. I've probably used that Ctrl+D shortcut with at least a dozen graphics programs over the years, beginning with CorelDraw that entered my world over twenty years ago. Alt+D (Clone) would take conscious thought and intent. That involves thumb action rather than little finger. Not totally out of the question, but highly unlikely.
Toponah was not the only font that misbehaved. I tried several chunky fonts from my vast collection. Now, in an attempt to replicate the problem, I started working my way through a list. When I got to BlackOak Std, it recurred. Using a single B for simplicity, and not duplicating (I am interested in whether the fill disappears in the Stroke to Path process) I went through the drill of stroking, adjusting, then clicking Stroke to Path. The fill stayed intact. Alarms went off. However ... I clicked on the new stroke object and moved it aside. It was empty, though the original letter remained intact. Hmm.
Continuing with the experiment, I tried Tonoopah again. The fill remained and the stroke stuck. Ditto with Fat Marker. Then I went back to Tonopah with BAT. Success. Who knows? My finger routine remained unchanged.
File attached.
P.S. In case anyone wonders why some gold outlines have black borders and some don't, I did not bother with the second round of stroking on some of those examples.The focus was succesfully converting the stroke to a path.
Hhmm, did you say which version of Inkscape you're using?
I've tried both Tonopah and BlackOak Std, and I can add strokes and use Stroke to Path on both. I didn't install Fat Marker.
What do you mean by " I went back to Tonopah with BAT. " ? Maybe BAT is some internet lingo that I don't know?
Well, I can't reproduce the problem, but that doesn't mean there isn't one. It's just a matter of pinpointing exactly how to reproduce it.
It probably doesn't matter, but when you add a stroke, how do you usually do it? Shift-click on the palette, or Fill and Stroke dialog, or other?