Submitted By: brynnDate: February 27, 2014, 06:55:57 AM Views: 8660 til December 12, 2019
Customize Your Inkscape Tools' Styles
This tutorial is for Inkscape beginners. If you're in a hurry, you can just skip down to the numbering steps.
If you have time and want to learn a few basics, maybe you want to read through the whole thing.
It may solve several problems you likely have already encountered.
Background
For reasons which I've never understood, the default behavior for all inkscape tools is to give whatever object you're drawing the same style as the last object you drew with that tool.
In Inkscape, "style" includes things like fill and stroke color, opacity, stroke width, and several others.
I remember being thrilled when I first opened Inkscape, and learned how easy it is to select objects, move them around, and change color and other style attributes. There are so many options which are som easy to use (IMO, compared to graster graphics editors) -within just a few minutes, I had a canvas full of doodles, as I tried out all the cool stuff! Of course, I didn't save that canvas, because it was all just practice.
But the next time I opened Inkscape, some of the tools weren't behaving the way I remembered.
The most common user issue, in my experience, is that the tool no longer seems to be either working at all, or working properly. And the reason almost always, is related to how you styled the last object you drew with that tool. Maybe you removed a stroke, or made it transparent, or made its width zero.
Now you need a stroke, but it's just not there. Or maybe you rounded the corners of a rectangle, but now you need a traditional rectangle. Or maybe you played with the Ellipse tool, and now it only will draw an arc, while you desperately need a circle. Or maybe the tool seems like it's not drawing anything.
Even though you may not have saved the doodles on your first canvas, Inkscape still remembers, and draws the next object to look just like the last one you drew with that tool.
Solutions
Now that you know this is how Inkscape works, you'll be able to solve most of these problems on your own.
It's just a matter of learning to remember what you drew, and recognize when this has happened, and where all the buttons and controls are, and what they do.
So maybe you will prefer to continue using Inkscape with its default behavior. Personally, I've never had a need for the object I'm currently drawing to look like the last one I drew with that tool.
So since I always have to go back and change the style of whatever I draw anyway, I think I may as well set up my tools to draw in the way I expect, every time.
For me, it really saves a LOT of headaches!
Here's how to set up a custom style for your tools.
Let's use the Star tool as an example, and it's the same process for every tool.
Note that for the tools which draw paths (Pencil/Freehand, Pen/Bézier, Connector, and maybe Calligraphy; and possibly Spiral shape too) you may want to set the style for stroke only. Although it truly is entirely up to you.
Draw an object on the canvas, using the Star tool.
Give it whatever style you want to draw, every time.
Leave it selected.
Double click on the (Star/Polygon) tool icon/button, to open up Inkscape Preferences to the controls of that tool.
For "Create new objects with:" select "This tool's own style:".
Click the horizontal bar that says "Take from selection". At that moment, you'll see the style indicator change to reflect the style you just applied. (You can see that the style I use is a black stroke and no fill. Actually that's how all my tools are set -just like if I was drawing with a pencil. That's what works for me.)
Bonus info
And for a couple more quick lessons, FYI, you can see that the same style indicator near the top, right corner of the Inkscape window, which shows the style for tools (when the tool is engaged).
There is a similar style indicator in the bottom left corner, which is a vital feature for experienced and beginning Inkscape users alike.
It reflects the style of the currently selected object, and also includes opacity info, i.e. "O: spinbox". (A spinbox is a number in a box with tiny arrows to dial up the value you need, or you can highlight and type or paste.)
What makes the style indicator so helpful, is that it not only reflects the style of the selected object, it also can be used to change the style.
Right-click on the Fill or Stroke color bar, and you'll find many quick options. If the object has a stroke, you'll see a tiny number on the right end of the color bar, which os the stroke width.
Right-click to find options for changing it, as well.
Of course, the Fill and Stroke dialog is the comprehensive feature for styles, but the Style indicator provides soem nice shortcuts, at certain times.
Still extremely confusing. I get the Preferences pane no matter how I click on the Style indicator, it does not allow me to spinbox anything. Inkscape 1.0.2 on Mac desktop.
Tips, Tricks, and Tutorials Customize Your Inkscape Tools' Styles
Inkscape.org
Tutorial mirrored from here.
Customize Your Inkscape Tools' Styles
This tutorial is for Inkscape beginners. If you're in a hurry, you can just skip down to the numbering steps.
If you have time and want to learn a few basics, maybe you want to read through the whole thing.
It may solve several problems you likely have already encountered.
Background
For reasons which I've never understood, the default behavior for all inkscape tools is to give whatever object you're drawing the same style as the last object you drew with that tool.
In Inkscape, "style" includes things like fill and stroke color, opacity, stroke width, and several others.
I remember being thrilled when I first opened Inkscape, and learned how easy it is to select objects, move them around, and change color and other style attributes. There are so many options which are som easy to use (IMO, compared to graster graphics editors) -within just a few minutes, I had a canvas full of doodles, as I tried out all the cool stuff! Of course, I didn't save that canvas, because it was all just practice.
But the next time I opened Inkscape, some of the tools weren't behaving the way I remembered.
The most common user issue, in my experience, is that the tool no longer seems to be either working at all, or working properly. And the reason almost always, is related to how you styled the last object you drew with that tool. Maybe you removed a stroke, or made it transparent, or made its width zero.
Now you need a stroke, but it's just not there. Or maybe you rounded the corners of a rectangle, but now you need a traditional rectangle. Or maybe you played with the Ellipse tool, and now it only will draw an arc, while you desperately need a circle. Or maybe the tool seems like it's not drawing anything.
Even though you may not have saved the doodles on your first canvas, Inkscape still remembers, and draws the next object to look just like the last one you drew with that tool.
Solutions
Now that you know this is how Inkscape works, you'll be able to solve most of these problems on your own.
It's just a matter of learning to remember what you drew, and recognize when this has happened, and where all the buttons and controls are, and what they do.
So maybe you will prefer to continue using Inkscape with its default behavior. Personally, I've never had a need for the object I'm currently drawing to look like the last one I drew with that tool.
So since I always have to go back and change the style of whatever I draw anyway, I think I may as well set up my tools to draw in the way I expect, every time.
For me, it really saves a LOT of headaches!
Here's how to set up a custom style for your tools.
Let's use the Star tool as an example, and it's the same process for every tool.
Note that for the tools which draw paths (Pencil/Freehand, Pen/Bézier, Connector, and maybe Calligraphy; and possibly Spiral shape too) you may want to set the style for stroke only. Although it truly is entirely up to you.
Bonus info
And for a couple more quick lessons, FYI, you can see that the same style indicator near the top, right corner of the Inkscape window, which shows the style for tools (when the tool is engaged).
There is a similar style indicator in the bottom left corner, which is a vital feature for experienced and beginning Inkscape users alike.
It reflects the style of the currently selected object, and also includes opacity info, i.e. "O: spinbox". (A spinbox is a number in a box with tiny arrows to dial up the value you need, or you can highlight and type or paste.)
What makes the style indicator so helpful, is that it not only reflects the style of the selected object, it also can be used to change the style.
Right-click on the Fill or Stroke color bar, and you'll find many quick options. If the object has a stroke, you'll see a tiny number on the right end of the color bar, which os the stroke width.
Right-click to find options for changing it, as well.
Of course, the Fill and Stroke dialog is the comprehensive feature for styles, but the Style indicator provides soem nice shortcuts, at certain times.
Brynn
2-27-14
Still extremely confusing. I get the Preferences pane no matter how I click on the Style indicator, it does not allow me to spinbox anything. Inkscape 1.0.2 on Mac desktop.