Sorry if this has been asked before but I'm tearing my fur out trying to work out why Inkscape is doing this!
I create a design, it's the only thing on the page, yet whether I tell Inkscape to export the design or the design as a selection the result is the same - it places the design at the top left of a much larger image, the rest being transparent. I've resorted to exporting at a much higher DPI, 400 instead of 200, and then importing the image into GIMP and cropping it down, then resizing it to the required 200 DPI, which is a pain in the proverbials.
Is this a bug in Inkscape 1.0 or am I missing something really obvious? I've tried ticking the "Hide all except selected" box but that doesn't solve it.
You have explicit to tell which area you want to export: Page, Drawing, Selection or Custom. I guess you want "Selection" - so select your design on canvas - go shift+cmd+E - go Selection tab - adjust dpi if needed - give name - hit Export.
Hi, thanks for the reply. I've tried all those options already; page just spits out the entire page, which doesn't help with a 10x10inch design and leaves me having to crop it in GIMP, and drawing, selection, and custom are resulting in the problem of it padding to the right and bottom, even though there is absolutely nothing present in that area.
You don´t need to crop elsewhere as you can tell Inkscape to Resize the Page to the selected content (at the Document properties shift+cmd+D)- then you can go with the whole Page size - you can adjust margins as you wish BTW.
How certain are you that there's nothing in the bottom right? Perhaps a small or transparent object there is causing the problem. Use Edit >Select All in All Layers and see whether the resultant box extends to the bottom right, in which case there's an object there of some sort. Using View > Display Mode > Outline might help if it's transparent.
If you can share the SVG file we might be able to give you a more definite answer.
Hi. I am absolutely certain there is nothing on the canvas aside from the design, I've just tried it using only a square on a freshly opened Inkscape and the result was the same. I can't see how to attach a screenshot directly here so I hope linking to them on my Dropbox is okay.
Could somebody possibly copy what I'm doing? Place an object, set the output to 10 x 10 inches at 2000 pixels and 200 dpi and check the result? I've tried this on two laptops now, and it's the same. I'm sure I must be missing something but I'm damned if I can see what!
You're confusing the export area dimensions with the image size.
tl;dr - Don't mess with the Width and Height fields in the "Export area" section. Just change the ones in the "Image Size" section. DPI is relatively meaningless in this situation.
When you first open the dialog, with the object selected, the top section ("Export area") is populated with the values that correspond to the selected item. If you change the Width and Height in there, you're actually changing the size of the area on the page that you've selected for export (notice that the x1 and y1 values change as well). Effectively you've switched from "Selection" to "Custom", except that the Inkscape UI unfortunately doesn't update to show that.
A PNG, being a raster image, is only really measured in pixels. The physical size of each pixel will depend on the device that displays or prints it. The "dpi" value that Inkscape shows by default is therefore somewhat arbitrary, based on an accepted semi-standard for the pixel density of a computer monitor (which is increasingly incorrect as more people move towards high DPI screens). Basically you can usually ignore the DPI field, and just set the size of the output image in pixels in the "Image size" section.
It is also possible to provide a "hint" in the header of the PNG file to tell other software what physical size you would like the image to be. For example this should allow you to import the image into a desktop publishing program and have it appear at the correct size on the page. It has no effect on the actual number of pixels in the image, though, so it's perfectly valid to create an image that's 5px wide, but which is printed at 10" wide. It would be scaled up appropriately, resulting in a blocky output as each pixel has to be quite large. Equally you could create an image that's 5000px wide to print at 1", in which case it would be scaled down and much of the detail lost as pixels are effectively thrown away to make it fit. If you do want to set this physical DPI hint, Inkscape 1.0 exposes it in the "pHYs dpi" field in the"Advanced" section of the dialog.
Thank you, Xav, that's sorted it!! I knew I must have been missing something, I just presumed in the Drawing or Selection tabs it required me to specify the desired size under width and height for the design. Having just tried it without and just setting the pixel requirement it's playing ball and exporting correctly. I've been using software like this over twenty years and never encountered a similar problem, I'm familiar with size vs dpi for print and screen etc, hence I was pulling my fur out when it was insisting on padding.
Now I can go back to designing stuff nobody wants to buy on Cafe Press lol
Hey Xav: your comment that DPI is relatively meaningless is mostly true, unless you're dealing with other software that GIVES it undo meaning. CAD quilting software my wife uses requires DPI to be set to certains values, or their software self destructs when importing an image.
Regardless, thanks for your comments the pHYS setting fixed my issue.
Beginners' Questions Export PNG problems
Inkscape.org
Hi all,
Sorry if this has been asked before but I'm tearing my fur out trying to work out why Inkscape is doing this!
I create a design, it's the only thing on the page, yet whether I tell Inkscape to export the design or the design as a selection the result is the same - it places the design at the top left of a much larger image, the rest being transparent. I've resorted to exporting at a much higher DPI, 400 instead of 200, and then importing the image into GIMP and cropping it down, then resizing it to the required 200 DPI, which is a pain in the proverbials.
Is this a bug in Inkscape 1.0 or am I missing something really obvious? I've tried ticking the "Hide all except selected" box but that doesn't solve it.
Any pointers would be appreciated. Thanks!
You have explicit to tell which area you want to export: Page, Drawing, Selection or Custom. I guess you want "Selection" - so select your design on canvas - go shift+cmd+E - go Selection tab - adjust dpi if needed - give name - hit Export.
Hi, thanks for the reply. I've tried all those options already; page just spits out the entire page, which doesn't help with a 10x10inch design and leaves me having to crop it in GIMP, and drawing, selection, and custom are resulting in the problem of it padding to the right and bottom, even though there is absolutely nothing present in that area.
You don´t need to crop elsewhere as you can tell Inkscape to Resize the Page to the selected content (at the Document properties shift+cmd+D)- then you can go with the whole Page size - you can adjust margins as you wish BTW.
Do you have any filters applied maybe?
How certain are you that there's nothing in the bottom right? Perhaps a small or transparent object there is causing the problem. Use Edit >Select All in All Layers and see whether the resultant box extends to the bottom right, in which case there's an object there of some sort. Using View > Display Mode > Outline might help if it's transparent.
If you can share the SVG file we might be able to give you a more definite answer.
Hi. I am absolutely certain there is nothing on the canvas aside from the design, I've just tried it using only a square on a freshly opened Inkscape and the result was the same. I can't see how to attach a screenshot directly here so I hope linking to them on my Dropbox is okay.
This was the only thing placed on the screen and you can see the export settings on the right, it's even set to export only the selection:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9f7jk25wdg6eacf/InkscapeScreen.png?dl=0
This is the result which, as you can see, extends well beyond the box selected:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/bwp531i3gg3lvy1/Result.png?dl=0
Could somebody possibly copy what I'm doing? Place an object, set the output to 10 x 10 inches at 2000 pixels and 200 dpi and check the result? I've tried this on two laptops now, and it's the same. I'm sure I must be missing something but I'm damned if I can see what!
Thanks all
I'm with Xav, please share an SVG that exhibits the issue.
You're confusing the export area dimensions with the image size.
tl;dr - Don't mess with the Width and Height fields in the "Export area" section. Just change the ones in the "Image Size" section. DPI is relatively meaningless in this situation.
When you first open the dialog, with the object selected, the top section ("Export area") is populated with the values that correspond to the selected item. If you change the Width and Height in there, you're actually changing the size of the area on the page that you've selected for export (notice that the x1 and y1 values change as well). Effectively you've switched from "Selection" to "Custom", except that the Inkscape UI unfortunately doesn't update to show that.
A PNG, being a raster image, is only really measured in pixels. The physical size of each pixel will depend on the device that displays or prints it. The "dpi" value that Inkscape shows by default is therefore somewhat arbitrary, based on an accepted semi-standard for the pixel density of a computer monitor (which is increasingly incorrect as more people move towards high DPI screens). Basically you can usually ignore the DPI field, and just set the size of the output image in pixels in the "Image size" section.
It is also possible to provide a "hint" in the header of the PNG file to tell other software what physical size you would like the image to be. For example this should allow you to import the image into a desktop publishing program and have it appear at the correct size on the page. It has no effect on the actual number of pixels in the image, though, so it's perfectly valid to create an image that's 5px wide, but which is printed at 10" wide. It would be scaled up appropriately, resulting in a blocky output as each pixel has to be quite large. Equally you could create an image that's 5000px wide to print at 1", in which case it would be scaled down and much of the detail lost as pixels are effectively thrown away to make it fit. If you do want to set this physical DPI hint, Inkscape 1.0 exposes it in the "pHYs dpi" field in the"Advanced" section of the dialog.
Thank you, Xav, that's sorted it!! I knew I must have been missing something, I just presumed in the Drawing or Selection tabs it required me to specify the desired size under width and height for the design. Having just tried it without and just setting the pixel requirement it's playing ball and exporting correctly. I've been using software like this over twenty years and never encountered a similar problem, I'm familiar with size vs dpi for print and screen etc, hence I was pulling my fur out when it was insisting on padding.
Now I can go back to designing stuff nobody wants to buy on Cafe Press lol
Many thanks for your help, it's much appreciated.
Hey Xav: your comment that DPI is relatively meaningless is mostly true, unless you're dealing with other software that GIVES it undo meaning. CAD quilting software my wife uses requires DPI to be set to certains values, or their software self destructs when importing an image.
Regardless, thanks for your comments the pHYS setting fixed my issue.