Hi there,

I'm trying to edit a design and find that when I delete nodes the shape is not preserved. The feature of preserving shape usually works but has stopped a few time recently even though I have 'deleting nodes preserves shape' selected in the preferences. Any idea how to correct so when deleting nodes the shape will be preserved? Thanks!

Deleting nodes nearly almost impacts the shape of an element. This setting will try to approximate the existing line, though usually there will be a certain level of simplification. The art is to find the sweet spot where you removed unneeded nodes, but didn't remove the ones what are essential to a shape.

(just imagine how crazy it would be if you would be able to keep up deleting nodes, and end up with a complex figure with only one node)

Don't forget, with the node ( N or F2 ) you can left double click on any part of the path to create new nodes. 

Then if you select those nodes press Shift + b to break the path, then delete that segment.

Thanks! @JurgenG and @inklinea- The issue is I have been using Inkscape for about a year with the 'deleting nodes preserves shape' option selected and it has worked well- Suddenly, even though I still have that feature selected, the program is not preserving the shape in the same way- Looking for suggestion as to how to correct since it is not working as it should-

An example file will help.

Thanks, @TylerDurden! Please see attached- I made a loose 'U' shape as an example- As of yesterday, if I were to remove the node in the center it would still have maintained it's shape (the arms/handles on the remaining nodes just would have extended further out), but today is just kind of collapses in- Thanks for taking a look-

Mine is a bit different.

Inkscape 1.3-alpha (2a5ddc9, 2023-03-29)    OS version:       Linux Mint 21

What version are you using?

Thank you- I'm still on 1.2- I did try the upgrade, however, some other functions seems to change with it so reverted back to 1.2- It has worked well with this function (maintaining shaper after deleting a node) for many months, it just seems to have changed today-

No way to reconstruct this kind or curvature with its under cuts neither automatically nor manually. This is it with 8,-8 precision on and 1.3beta on macOS:

Thanks, @TylerDurden! I was able to fix it simply by unchecking the 'deleting nodes preserves shape' (curiously)- Thanks again for your time-

Maybe also try Delete and Ctrl+Delete after resetting preferences/shortcuts in 1.2 and 1.3beta.