Hi, everyone. I've encountered a strange problem which is making the Inkscape highly unusable. I've added about 10 paragraphs of text, and no matter what I do (scaling the text down significantly, changing preference options, system options, lowering graphics, etc) zooming in and out of the canvas creates a delay / lag to the point where my zooming becomes uncontrollable and I end up either too zoomed in or zoomed into an incorrect section of the canvas.
I've tried many different solutions and none of them has fixed the issue in the slightest. I'm wondering why Inkscape cannot handle a few paragraphs of text but can handle hundreds of shapes on the canvas.
Has anyone ever encountered this, and how can I go about fixing / adjusting it?
I don't believe the problem is memory as I have 16GB RAM, and from what I understand Inkscape doesn't make much use of the GPU, but I could be wrong about that.
Right, I checked the Filter Editor and there no filters being used, which is not surprising as this Inkscape file was meant to be a very basic visual representation with only a few simple shapes (rectangles) and the majority being text (very short lines long) which would irl be about 2 - 3 pages long.
Is Inkscape not able to handle a minor text load? I haven't come across any problems like this with other vector based or even raster based software, so I'm assuming right now that the program itself is the issue.
Note: No gradients are being used either for the shapes, only flat colors. All very basic on the canvas.
Of course! The attached is a very similar example of both the layout and the amount of text I'm working with. As you can see on the canvas, these are example texts, but they represent the layout I would like the text to be in, and the shapes as well. There is still more to be added of course (I had to stop because of the lag issue), and even in this example am I finding it difficult to zoom and move the groups around. I have created similar files in the past week as a test to see if maybe my one file is somehow exhibiting an isolated problem, but it seems no matter what, the text becomes a problem if too much is introduced onto the canvas.
You're absolutely right, this is slow. But I'm using an ancient MacBook so I can't really blame the software.
As an experiment, I ungrouped everything and converted all the text into paths (92,555 nodes - it took a while) and navigating this seems as responsive as the original. It seems Inkscape doesn't differentiate between text objects and paths. More text = more nodes = slower zoom.
I played around with the settings in [Preferences > Rendering] but I didn't notice any performance changes, better or worse.
Unfortunately, I don't think there is a simple answer. I see snappy behavior in Linux Mint on old Mac hardware, but in Windows (gaming laptop)... ugh. My guess that it's a result of GTK3 Windows implementation
I also tested running Inkscape 1.1 under LinuxMint 20 on a "live CD" and it's great from the zoom/canvas standpoint, but a live cd is inherently slow for disk operations.
In this case, I'd opt for a dual-boot installation of Mint and use Mint for Inkscape operations (or anything not requiring Win). A flash/portable drive might also work.
EDIT: I actually also added a second HD just for Linux to my laptop just to run Inkscape... I have document layouts to do too.
Beginners' Questions Inkscape Lagged Zooming After Adding Lines of Text
Inkscape.org
Hi, everyone. I've encountered a strange problem which is making the Inkscape highly unusable. I've added about 10 paragraphs of text, and no matter what I do (scaling the text down significantly, changing preference options, system options, lowering graphics, etc) zooming in and out of the canvas creates a delay / lag to the point where my zooming becomes uncontrollable and I end up either too zoomed in or zoomed into an incorrect section of the canvas.
I've tried many different solutions and none of them has fixed the issue in the slightest. I'm wondering why Inkscape cannot handle a few paragraphs of text but can handle hundreds of shapes on the canvas.
Has anyone ever encountered this, and how can I go about fixing / adjusting it?
Thank you!
Which OS/Inkscape are you using?
WIndows 10 | Inkscape 1.1
I don't believe the problem is memory as I have 16GB RAM, and from what I understand Inkscape doesn't make much use of the GPU, but I could be wrong about that.
I'd check for any subtle filters that might have accidentally gotten applied... blurs, etc.
And no, not any loadsharing with the GPU, AFAIK.
Right, I checked the Filter Editor and there no filters being used, which is not surprising as this Inkscape file was meant to be a very basic visual representation with only a few simple shapes (rectangles) and the majority being text (very short lines long) which would irl be about 2 - 3 pages long.
Is Inkscape not able to handle a minor text load? I haven't come across any problems like this with other vector based or even raster based software, so I'm assuming right now that the program itself is the issue.
Note: No gradients are being used either for the shapes, only flat colors. All very basic on the canvas.
Please share an example Inkscape svg file.
Of course! The attached is a very similar example of both the layout and the amount of text I'm working with. As you can see on the canvas, these are example texts, but they represent the layout I would like the text to be in, and the shapes as well. There is still more to be added of course (I had to stop because of the lag issue), and even in this example am I finding it difficult to zoom and move the groups around. I have created similar files in the past week as a test to see if maybe my one file is somehow exhibiting an isolated problem, but it seems no matter what, the text becomes a problem if too much is introduced onto the canvas.
You're absolutely right, this is slow. But I'm using an ancient MacBook so I can't really blame the software.
As an experiment, I ungrouped everything and converted all the text into paths (92,555 nodes - it took a while) and navigating this seems as responsive as the original. It seems Inkscape doesn't differentiate between text objects and paths. More text = more nodes = slower zoom.
I played around with the settings in [Preferences > Rendering] but I didn't notice any performance changes, better or worse.
I'll hand over now to the real experts.
Oof. That's really bad.
Unfortunately, I don't think there is a simple answer. I see snappy behavior in Linux Mint on old Mac hardware, but in Windows (gaming laptop)... ugh. My guess that it's a result of GTK3 Windows implementation
I also tested running Inkscape 1.1 under LinuxMint 20 on a "live CD" and it's great from the zoom/canvas standpoint, but a live cd is inherently slow for disk operations.
In this case, I'd opt for a dual-boot installation of Mint and use Mint for Inkscape operations (or anything not requiring Win). A flash/portable drive might also work.
EDIT: I actually also added a second HD just for Linux to my laptop just to run Inkscape... I have document layouts to do too.
Please file a bug report and link to this discussion. https://inkscape.org/forums/beyond/how-to-report-bugs-or-request-new-features/I can test tomorrow in v .92.2 under windows and see if that's any better.
OK, I just added a bug report: https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/issues/2824
Feel free to contribute.
Mmmh - runs "normal" on M1/BigSur/Inkscape 1.1.1 - not much to complain from my side - unless I´m overlooking something of course.