What To Do When Tools Are Drawing Invisible Objects

(or No Longer Working as Before)

By default, whenever you draw a new object with Inkscape, that object takes the style (color, stroke width, transparency, etc.) of the object which was last drawn with that tool.  Usually we find that someone has made an object transparent, and thus, the next object they draw with that tool will also be transparent.  There are a few places to control transparency:

• Object menu > Fill and Stroke (called Fill and Stroke dialog) on both the Fill tab and Stroke Paint tab, look at the A: slider (alpha) which should be all the way to the right, with a value of 255
• Fill and Stroke dialog at the bottom, the Opacity slider should be all the way to the right, with a value of 100%
• Layers can be made transparent as well.  Layers menu > Layers opens the Layers dialog.  Check Opacity slider for each layer (all the way to right, 100%)
• Also in Layers dialog, make sure the eye icon is open   , and the Blend Mode is Normal.

If the non-working tool is a shape tool (Rectangle , 3D Box , Ellipse , Star , or Spiral ) and it's drawing something, but not what you want, chances are that the last time you used it, you moved one or more of the handles that control it's shape.  The handles appear when the shape tool is enabled, and the object is selected.  They are tiny squares, circles, and diamond shapes.  To return the shape to it's default, for Star and Spiral tools, click this button  which is on the right end of the control bar.  For the Rectangle tool, this button    makes rounded corners sharp again.  For the Ellipse tool, this button  makes the ellipse whole again.  The 3D Box tool doesn't have a default button.  (Note that icons may look different on different systems.  But their placement - the far right end of the control bar - is the same in all systems.)

Another possibility is that you have turned the fill and/or stroke off completely.  After you draw a new object, and without deselecting it (and even though you might not be able to see it) go to the Fill and Stroke dialog > Fill tab, and/or Stroke Paint tab.  If you see this button  is depressed, you've solved the problem, because that button turns off the fill (if you're on the Fill tab) or the stroke (if you're on the Stroke tab).  To replace the fill or stroke, click the solid blue button  (assuming you want a flat colored fill or stroke).  (The other buttons apply gradients, patterns or do other things.)

Once you know all these places to check, you'll be able to change the style of objects to your liking, as you draw.  However, there IS a way to set your tools to have custom styles, which will not change, no matter how much you may edit objects later.  (For example, you might want all your tools to always draw with a black stroke and no fill.  Or for some reason, you might want every rectangle you draw to be opaque green.  Or you might want your Pencil tool to always draw dashed lines.  Just about anything a tool can do, can be set to draw that way, every time.)  Here's a tutorial:  Customize Your Inkscape Tools' Styles

If you still can't solve your problem, please feel free to post a message in our forum, where you can share your SVG file, and we can help you pinpoint the problem.