Hi, I feel bad of asking this extremely elementary question which has probably been asked many times.

If I do the following:

- draw a polygon with 4 nodes

- draw a smaller one contained in the first

- CTRL K

- Fill

I get the first polygon fully filled. How can I tell Inkscape that the interior shouldn't be filled ?

Note that I'm looking for a clean solution, not using a cut or something. I'm making a map with galleries crossing each other,I have all the paths traced, and the question I'm asking is just the local picture.

Thanks for your help.

Pierre

The two paths, before combining, must have the same orientation. You can :

• Open fill and stroke dialog, tab fill and look for the two top right icons (fill rules) : the right icon is enabled, click on the left ('fill rule : evenodd).
• Reverse one path : click on node tool icon, the click on one node of one subpath, do path > reverse.

In inkscape preferences, browse to tools > node Tool and enable Show path direction on outlines : this will help.

Thanks a lot ! This makes total sense (and actually by default it looks like the orientations have to be opposite to each other, which makes sense geometrically).

Best

Pierre

You can take a look at Tav's manual archive here: https://web.archive.org/web/20230715071752/http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Attributes-Fill-Stroke.html#Attributes-Fill-Rule

David248

The two paths, before combining, must have the same orientation.

Fill rule just works when Paths have the same direction - otherwise the "hole" will be automatically generated while combining. 

And if you place the smaller part on top and go Path->Difference the Paths will receive different directions by default - not so when Path->Combined.