If I draw a straight line, I am trying to figure out any method to set the angle exactly to 0 or 90 degrees or other angle. One help would be to use a snap grid. I do see a visible grid.
1) If I go to edit>preferences>grids I can change a bunch of grid settings. Right now I have experimentally set Spacing X to 17 pixels and Spacing Y to 5 pixels. I have also tried changing from pixels to inches. After these changes in the dialog box, I can only see to close the dialog box. There is no visible change in the grid as a result of my change to grid preferences. Am I missing some button to apply the changes which I have made? If I close and re-open the dialog box, I do see that my changes are remembered, but it has no visible effect outside the dialog box.
UPDATE: My 17 x 5 grid setting was intentionally weird so that it would be obvious to me if the software responded. Well the software did respond; eventually. Not sure when or exactly what I did to get that to happen. I think I closed and re-opened Inkscape a few times in between. Now I have changed the grid setting to 0.1 inch square but am still looking at my silly rectangular grid. I will try closing the file and reopening it. YES! Closed the file and re-opened it (did not close Inkscape) and now the grid is square. Someone please tell me what I am doing worng.
2) When I draw a line, I cannot see any tendency of the cursor (or line ends) to snap to the displayed grid. How to make the cursor snap to grid?
3) UPDATED: I switched back to 0.92 and found Transform. So this can give me a precise rotation relative to the starting disorientation. But if I want a line to be at exactly 0 or 90 degrees (or some other angle) how do I do that? Something ought to tell me what angle the line is at, and allow me to set it to an absolute value regardless of the initial disorientation.
The Preferences dialog controls the default grid for new documents.
To control the current document grid, look in the Grids tab of the Document Properties panel.
To see the orientation of a straight line as it is drawn using the pen, keep your eyes on the status bar.
Another way to work with angles is to use a guideline dragged from the rulers into the workspace. A double-click on a guideline will provide controls for precise position and angle.
There are numerous snapping controls in the bar on the far-right.
The center of rotation of an object can be placed arbitrarily and snapped to other elements in the workspace. This allows precise placement of an object's corner (for example) and object rotation can be around that corner by snapping the center of rotation to that corner.
My file has a 1 mm square grid (now changed to 0.1 mm). It has a straight line which is placed off grid and is positioned at some arbitrary angle. I want to reposition both ends of this straight line (adusting the length if necessary) on grid to make it perfectly horizontal. Snapping is enabled and as I try to move one end of my line, I see popup which says "Cusp node to grid intersection." This baffles me. What is a node or cusp of a straight line?
I do not know what is a guideline in Inkscape? Is this the dashed line which surrounds (my line in question) once I identify (click on) my line? And OK now I see if I double click on the dashed line, now I see a small diamond at each end of (my line in question) and I can snap that to the grid. So this is some progress. But after playing with this now I can no longer get the end points to snap to grid. I think that "Snap nodes, paths, and handles" is still turned on.
But now I have a break point which has appeared in the middle of the line; I do not know what caused this to appear.
Is there any way to read out the angle and length of a line?
Beginners' Questions Grid and Angles; using Beta version 1.0
Inkscape.org
If I draw a straight line, I am trying to figure out any method to set the angle exactly to 0 or 90 degrees or other angle. One help would be to use a snap grid. I do see a visible grid.
1) If I go to edit>preferences>grids I can change a bunch of grid settings. Right now I have experimentally set Spacing X to 17 pixels and Spacing Y to 5 pixels. I have also tried changing from pixels to inches. After these changes in the dialog box, I can only see to close the dialog box. There is no visible change in the grid as a result of my change to grid preferences. Am I missing some button to apply the changes which I have made? If I close and re-open the dialog box, I do see that my changes are remembered, but it has no visible effect outside the dialog box.
UPDATE: My 17 x 5 grid setting was intentionally weird so that it would be obvious to me if the software responded. Well the software did respond; eventually. Not sure when or exactly what I did to get that to happen. I think I closed and re-opened Inkscape a few times in between. Now I have changed the grid setting to 0.1 inch square but am still looking at my silly rectangular grid. I will try closing the file and reopening it. YES! Closed the file and re-opened it (did not close Inkscape) and now the grid is square. Someone please tell me what I am doing worng.
2) When I draw a line, I cannot see any tendency of the cursor (or line ends) to snap to the displayed grid. How to make the cursor snap to grid?
3) UPDATED: I switched back to 0.92 and found Transform. So this can give me a precise rotation relative to the starting disorientation. But if I want a line to be at exactly 0 or 90 degrees (or some other angle) how do I do that? Something ought to tell me what angle the line is at, and allow me to set it to an absolute value regardless of the initial disorientation.
Hi Bob,
The Preferences dialog controls the default grid for new documents.
To control the current document grid, look in the Grids tab of the Document Properties panel.
To see the orientation of a straight line as it is drawn using the pen, keep your eyes on the status bar.
Another way to work with angles is to use a guideline dragged from the rulers into the workspace. A double-click on a guideline will provide controls for precise position and angle.
There are numerous snapping controls in the bar on the far-right.
http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Snapping.html
TD
WRT orientation:
The center of rotation of an object can be placed arbitrarily and snapped to other elements in the workspace. This allows precise placement of an object's corner (for example) and object rotation can be around that corner by snapping the center of rotation to that corner.
TD
Thank you, Tyler
Sorry I was not able to get to this yesterday.
My file has a 1 mm square grid (now changed to 0.1 mm). It has a straight line which is placed off grid and is positioned at some arbitrary angle. I want to reposition both ends of this straight line (adusting the length if necessary) on grid to make it perfectly horizontal. Snapping is enabled and as I try to move one end of my line, I see popup which says "Cusp node to grid intersection." This baffles me. What is a node or cusp of a straight line?
I do not know what is a guideline in Inkscape? Is this the dashed line which surrounds (my line in question) once I identify (click on) my line? And OK now I see if I double click on the dashed line, now I see a small diamond at each end of (my line in question) and I can snap that to the grid. So this is some progress. But after playing with this now I can no longer get the end points to snap to grid. I think that "Snap nodes, paths, and handles" is still turned on.
But now I have a break point which has appeared in the middle of the line; I do not know what caused this to appear.
Is there any way to read out the angle and length of a line?