I've searched a lot for this. I didn't immediately find an explanation as to why there is both a canvas and a page. It took me a couple of days. Now I do know what the difference is, but not how to make sense of it.
Inkscape opens like any computer programme's page. With a white area surrounded by toolbars etc. And you can draw in that space. That's the canvas. So far so good. But in the middle there's a rectangle which is the "page" and is rather small, To the point of being useless.(unless you have a massive monitor, I guess.).
And I've found out how to make the canvass landscape, the better to match how I like to use my (Wacom) graphics tablet.
But not how to simply be able to draw something that simply matches my screen real estate ( and to some extent, allowing for the tools and menus) to my tablet.
In effect, I need the "Page" to be the canvas, not a bit of the canvas, and at the very least to be the shape of the canvas.
I just don't understand what I'm meant to do to have a drawing area ( page) that simply matches my drawing screen (canvas). In the way that a WORD page is the page I type in, or a Paint page is the blank page that I can draw on.
I think I understand what you are trying figure out. You are having difficulty understanding the document background vs the page (the outlined rectangle area), correct?
The background is just that - a background only. Even MS Word has a 'background'. If you change your zoom view in Word to like 25%, you'll see that there's a whole bunch of space around your actual defined page area. So in Inkscape and other vector programs, the page is indeed that outlined area that appears in the center of the background.
Depending on your project, you will have different sized pages. So if you were designing a business card you would set up your page size to be the dimensions of a business card, say 3.5"x2.5" (not accounting for bleed). Or maybe you want to design something the size of your desktop screen resolution, so maybe you'd make your page something like 1400x900 px (or whatever your display resolution of your desktop actually is). In both cases the page area will appear smaller than that - - but thats just the default view so you can view the whole page. This matters more in larger designs. As a more extreme example, I designed a truck wrap not long ago and my page size was a scaled version of the trucks cargo dimensions. Much larger than a monitors viewing area at full size. Obviously I needed to see an overview of the entire design throughout the design process, so it's helpful to be able to see my full page design at a much smaller size, otherwise I'd have to scroll left, right, up, and down just to view different areas of the my design, which is not very practical.
Being a vector program, Inkscape allows you to zoom in an out of the page area without degrading the resolution. So the view you see at start is not the actual size of your project. Think of it as simply a zoomed out view.
For another example, if you start a new project and choose the A4 letter page dimensions (I think A4 is an option - not at my computer right now), it will create that document but the outlined page area will appear smaller than the size specified. The dimensions are still accurate though, and if you were to send that document to a printer it would print at the correct size. You just have to zoom in to see that area larger as per your preference.
This is common in many vector applications. Adobe Illustrator, Scribus, Sk1, etc
Furthermore, if you have elements that extend beyond or exist outside the defined page area, they will get cut off when you export the document to something like a jpg or png. If you sent it off for print, the elements outside the page area would not print - only the contents of the interior of the page borders would print.
Having a page area separate from the document background is necessary because if your background were your entire page area and you were designing for something larger than your monitor, if you went to zoom out to see the whole design, you wouldn't know where your design's boundaries were - - unless you created a rectangle the size of your designs dimensions as a guide, but then you'd essentially be creating a defined page area anyway. There's more reasons why programs operate this way, but hopefully I've helped shed some light on this for you!
Having a separate page defined within the larger canvas area serves a number of useful purposes:
It defines a specific size for you to draw within, such as an A4 sheet, or an icon of 64x64 pixels.
If the SVG is loaded into a web browser it defines the part of the image that will be visible. Content outside the page will be clipped.
If you export to a PNG, one of the shortcut buttons lets you export the page area. If you need a specific image size, therefore, you can set the page to that size and export to the right dimensions more easily.
There's a button on the main toolbar for zooming so the whole page fits on the screen. This is a quick way to get back to a known state after zooming and panning.
When creating my comic strips I have the page dimensions set to the size that I want the exported PNG to be. But I often include extra bonus content - "Easter eggs" - outside the page area; you can only see this by loading the source file into Inkscape. I also use the area outside the page as a scratchpad for bits of the image I want to work on before they get moved into the scene, or as a scrapbook for keeping ideas and notes during the creative process.
Sometimes in print you want content to bleed off the printed page - think of a circle, or some text in which only a portion is visible on the paper. Drawing the whole shape over the boundary between the page and the canvas background is a good way to achieve this. For this purpose I think it would be useful for Inkscape to have a preview mode, that shows only the page with the external content clipped, but that's not something that's present at the moment.
Thank you Bella and Xav. Yes that makes much more sense. It was very helpful indeed. It's pleasing to find forum contributors who are so helpful and specific. I will make use of what you have written - resizing the page to meet my requirements - I should, with just a little experimentation, be able to create a working page that matches to my output - normally standard A4 or A5 paper, sometimes stickers for kids, that sort of thing.- and my Wacom graphics tablet(A4). The interesting aspect will be to maximise the area of the tablet to draw on and still leave edges to access the menus etc. But that should be pretty straight forward now that I understand what I'm doing.
Perhaps your explanation ought to be in the "Basic" explanation that Tyler so unhelpfully pointed me to. As opposed to what that section actually says (not very much tbh - the word "page" doesn't even appear in there).
I quote (with annotations)...
"Panning the canvas undefined as to purpose - why would a user need or want to do this
There are many ways to pan (scroll) the document canvas. Try Ctrl+arrow keys to scroll by keyboard. (Try this now to scroll this document down.) You can also drag the canvas by the middle mouse button. Or, you can use the scrollbars....etc
Zooming in or out (unexplained - as to what the user should be zooming to or why would user want to do this)
The easiest way to zoom is by pressing - and + (or =) keys. You can also use Ctrl+middle click or Ctrl+right click to zoom in....etc"
As noted: No mention of the "page" within that canvass or its relationship to it.
I have, over the years, made small contributions to, or helped to write various technology explanations and manuals.
One of my precepts was always "Everything item in the menus should have a corresponding mention in the help pages"
But I appreciate that Inkscape is created by teams of volunteers and that inevitably means that the items that gain the most attention are the ones that are most sexy. Help pages aren't sexy. Anyone who has tried to look at the release notes for Libre Office by clicking on the link in the programme will see.will see...
I should add, in case any other newbie comes to this, that the next step to pursue is this tutorial, that the information above enabled me to find because it now becomes relevant...
There are other, more evolved vector illustration programs. Adobe Illustrator, Corel, Affinity Designer... they are fine choices for users seeking documentation geared toward early learners.
Happy to be able to help, Terry. Vector/illustration programs can be a beast if you're new to them. You've got your work cut out for you, but in time tings will start to come together if you stick with it. Have fun along the way and remember to save your projects often (in fact it is also a good idea to set automatic saving of documents in Inkscape, which can be turned on in preferences).
The series covers just about every menu, button and field in the Inkscape UI, though it's not a manual per se, so the order in which topics are tackled is somewhat arbitrary.
Thanks, I'll look at those. Random is fine. And maybe in an interest or use base sequence that would be useful in itself.I've d/led them to my hdd and pasted the index and contents lists to a Onenote page for easy access.
I've created a template that allows an A4 landscape page to open filling most of the canvas, now, which I think will be the default. (I need to check that it opens as default, but if not that shouldn't be difficult to sort out). And has room when it maps to my Wacom to allow access to the menus etc. using the pen, which saves switching to standard mouse every time.
Beginners' Questions Newbie question canvas v page size
Inkscape.org
I've searched a lot for this. I didn't immediately find an explanation as to why there is both a canvas and a page. It took me a couple of days. Now I do know what the difference is, but not how to make sense of it.
Inkscape opens like any computer programme's page. With a white area surrounded by toolbars etc. And you can draw in that space. That's the canvas. So far so good. But in the middle there's a rectangle which is the "page" and is rather small, To the point of being useless.(unless you have a massive monitor, I guess.).
And I've found out how to make the canvass landscape, the better to match how I like to use my (Wacom) graphics tablet.
But not how to simply be able to draw something that simply matches my screen real estate ( and to some extent, allowing for the tools and menus) to my tablet.
In effect, I need the "Page" to be the canvas, not a bit of the canvas, and at the very least to be the shape of the canvas.
I just don't understand what I'm meant to do to have a drawing area ( page) that simply matches my drawing screen (canvas). In the way that a WORD page is the page I type in, or a Paint page is the blank page that I can draw on.
What do I need to do? And what am I doing wrong?
Maybe you have seen this:
I think I understand what you are trying figure out. You are having difficulty understanding the document background vs the page (the outlined rectangle area), correct?
The background is just that - a background only. Even MS Word has a 'background'. If you change your zoom view in Word to like 25%, you'll see that there's a whole bunch of space around your actual defined page area. So in Inkscape and other vector programs, the page is indeed that outlined area that appears in the center of the background.
Depending on your project, you will have different sized pages. So if you were designing a business card you would set up your page size to be the dimensions of a business card, say 3.5"x2.5" (not accounting for bleed). Or maybe you want to design something the size of your desktop screen resolution, so maybe you'd make your page something like 1400x900 px (or whatever your display resolution of your desktop actually is). In both cases the page area will appear smaller than that - - but thats just the default view so you can view the whole page. This matters more in larger designs. As a more extreme example, I designed a truck wrap not long ago and my page size was a scaled version of the trucks cargo dimensions. Much larger than a monitors viewing area at full size. Obviously I needed to see an overview of the entire design throughout the design process, so it's helpful to be able to see my full page design at a much smaller size, otherwise I'd have to scroll left, right, up, and down just to view different areas of the my design, which is not very practical.
Being a vector program, Inkscape allows you to zoom in an out of the page area without degrading the resolution. So the view you see at start is not the actual size of your project. Think of it as simply a zoomed out view.
For another example, if you start a new project and choose the A4 letter page dimensions (I think A4 is an option - not at my computer right now), it will create that document but the outlined page area will appear smaller than the size specified. The dimensions are still accurate though, and if you were to send that document to a printer it would print at the correct size. You just have to zoom in to see that area larger as per your preference.
This is common in many vector applications. Adobe Illustrator, Scribus, Sk1, etc
Furthermore, if you have elements that extend beyond or exist outside the defined page area, they will get cut off when you export the document to something like a jpg or png. If you sent it off for print, the elements outside the page area would not print - only the contents of the interior of the page borders would print.
Having a page area separate from the document background is necessary because if your background were your entire page area and you were designing for something larger than your monitor, if you went to zoom out to see the whole design, you wouldn't know where your design's boundaries were - - unless you created a rectangle the size of your designs dimensions as a guide, but then you'd essentially be creating a defined page area anyway. There's more reasons why programs operate this way, but hopefully I've helped shed some light on this for you!
Having a separate page defined within the larger canvas area serves a number of useful purposes:
When creating my comic strips I have the page dimensions set to the size that I want the exported PNG to be. But I often include extra bonus content - "Easter eggs" - outside the page area; you can only see this by loading the source file into Inkscape. I also use the area outside the page as a scratchpad for bits of the image I want to work on before they get moved into the scene, or as a scrapbook for keeping ideas and notes during the creative process.
Sometimes in print you want content to bleed off the printed page - think of a circle, or some text in which only a portion is visible on the paper. Drawing the whole shape over the boundary between the page and the canvas background is a good way to achieve this. For this purpose I think it would be useful for Inkscape to have a preview mode, that shows only the page with the external content clipped, but that's not something that's present at the moment.
Thank you Bella and Xav. Yes that makes much more sense. It was very helpful indeed. It's pleasing to find forum contributors who are so helpful and specific. I will make use of what you have written - resizing the page to meet my requirements - I should, with just a little experimentation, be able to create a working page that matches to my output - normally standard A4 or A5 paper, sometimes stickers for kids, that sort of thing.- and my Wacom graphics tablet(A4). The interesting aspect will be to maximise the area of the tablet to draw on and still leave edges to access the menus etc. But that should be pretty straight forward now that I understand what I'm doing.
Perhaps your explanation ought to be in the "Basic" explanation that Tyler so unhelpfully pointed me to. As opposed to what that section actually says (not very much tbh - the word "page" doesn't even appear in there).
I quote (with annotations)...
"Panning the canvas undefined as to purpose - why would a user need or want to do this
There are many ways to pan (scroll) the document canvas. Try Ctrl+arrow keys to scroll by keyboard. (Try this now to scroll this document down.) You can also drag the canvas by the middle mouse button. Or, you can use the scrollbars....etc
Zooming in or out (unexplained - as to what the user should be zooming to or why would user want to do this)
The easiest way to zoom is by pressing - and + (or =) keys. You can also use Ctrl+middle click or Ctrl+right click to zoom in....etc"
As noted: No mention of the "page" within that canvass or its relationship to it.
One of my precepts was always "Everything item in the menus should have a corresponding mention in the help pages"
But I appreciate that Inkscape is created by teams of volunteers and that inevitably means that the items that gain the most attention are the ones that are most sexy. Help pages aren't sexy. Anyone who has tried to look at the release notes for Libre Office by clicking on the link in the programme will see.will see...
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/ReleaseNotes/6.4#About_this_page
I should add, in case any other newbie comes to this, that the next step to pursue is this tutorial, that the information above enabled me to find because it now becomes relevant...
http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/using-templates-in-inkscape
There are other, more evolved vector illustration programs. Adobe Illustrator, Corel, Affinity Designer... they are fine choices for users seeking documentation geared toward early learners.
Happy to be able to help, Terry. Vector/illustration programs can be a beast if you're new to them. You've got your work cut out for you, but in time tings will start to come together if you stick with it. Have fun along the way and remember to save your projects often (in fact it is also a good idea to set automatic saving of documents in Inkscape, which can be turned on in preferences).
If you want wordy documentation, I do have an ongoing series of tutorials in Full Circle Magazine (it's a free download) that currently runs to nearly 100 instalments. More details here: https://inkscape.org/forums/tutorials/inkscape-tutorials-in-full-circle-magazine/
The series covers just about every menu, button and field in the Inkscape UI, though it's not a manual per se, so the order in which topics are tackled is somewhat arbitrary.
Thanks, I'll look at those. Random is fine. And maybe in an interest or use base sequence that would be useful in itself.I've d/led them to my hdd and pasted the index and contents lists to a Onenote page for easy access.
I've created a template that allows an A4 landscape page to open filling most of the canvas, now, which I think will be the default. (I need to check that it opens as default, but if not that shouldn't be difficult to sort out). And has room when it maps to my Wacom to allow access to the menus etc. using the pen, which saves switching to standard mouse every time.
So thank you again for your help with this.