Hello Everyone,

I am involved in a graphic project where I need metal gradients to apply to my images. I found a website with 36 free gradients that have just the colors I need, and they offer an inkscape.svg file with the 36 different gradients shown as circular pictures.

I have googled how to add an svg to Inkspace, how to import an svg to Inkspace, how to add gradient file to Inkspace, nothing is giving me the answer.

What do I do please?

With my Inkscape file open, I'd:

• Open the downloaded gradients svg file
• Select the circle object that  has the gradient I'd like to use
• Ctrl+C to copy the gradient object to the clipboard
• Select the object in my file that I'd like to apply the gradient to
• Use Edit>Paste..>Style

Now that I have described the above steps, I see that Nick S. has an entire page on this, where he illustrates the process and has the link to download. 🙄

Hello Tyler,

Thank you for replying.

I am on Linux Mint if that matters, and when I double click on the inkscape.svg file it opens with Image Viewer app.

There is no way to select any single gradient of the 36 pictured. When I click on any of them and select copy, all 36 discs and the description text all copy as one big image.

The page you linked is exactly the page that I got this zip of gradients from, but the instructions are limited to "Inkscape users: Edit > Paste > Style"

What I was hoping to learn was how to save the entire batch of gradients into the Inkspace program so anytime I selected gradient tool these would show in the gradient selection options.

Is this possible? I am brand new to Inkspace but GIMP, which I am a little familiar with has a gradient directory that one simply needs to add any .ggr files found on the web into, and they then permanently show in the gradient options window. This is what I was hoping to accomplish in Inkscape.

Firstly, double-clicking an SVG file in Mint can be set to open the SVG in Inkscape. That's a Mint preference somewhere.

Next:

There are no gradient-specific user files in Inkscape, but there is at least one way to accomplish your goal.

I'd create a template file that has the gradients. This could be as simple as saving the gradient file as a template file and opening Inkscape using the saved template.

To get more fancy, I'd:

• Open the gradients file
• setup the page to my preferred units and size (document properties) 
• Open the Fill/Stroke dialog
• Select all the example gradient objects on the page 
• Click the swatch button in the Fill/Stroke dialog (in the fill or stroke tab, where flat/gradient/pattern/etc. buttons are)
• Open the swatches dialog (View>Swatches), all the gradients should be listed with generic names.
• Open the Preferences>Behavior>Cleanup and untick the checkbox that deletes unused swatches.
• Delete all the objects on the canvas.
• Save the document as a template named MetallicGrads or similar, and/or not check the box to make it the default template.

Hello Tyler,

Thank you for sticking with me, I know it can be frustrating helping someone with no familiarity of a program.

I have opened the gradients file by right clicking and selecting open with Inkscape in my Mint dropdown menu.

I just have what appears to be a full canvass of white with the color discs present, surrounded by buttons. I dont see how to setup the page to perferred units here, so I'm moving on

I r-clicked the first disc and chose "Select This" then I found "Select Same" and clicking this selected all 36 discs. Safari, sogoodi!

Clicked the Swatch button, nothing seemed to happen, but I assume that made swatch an option in View

I have selected View>Swatches and clicked Swatches

At this point everything goes berserk. I was expecting to see the columns and rows of colored discs with program assigned names affixed, instead I see this: (see attached picture)

If this is an image of the 6 rows and 6 columns of the gradient discs, I cannot even see where one ends and another starts. Is this what I am supposed to be seeing?

What should I do next please?

I don't know why your swatches are so large, and I don't see the menu in your interface. Before proceeding further, I'd reset the preferences.

Then:

For page setup open File >Document Properties.

Good job getting the swatches, now you can configure the Swatches window.

Now you can delete everything in the page and save as a template.

Hello again,
 

I have closed Inkspace for the time being I can get back to the gradients selected whenever I want now by following your steps.

How do I get the menu that you say is missing from my swatches window? I googled how to do this and was told to select Interface>Toolbar but this does not exist in my Interface options.

I believe I will need to be taught how to enable this menu before I can continue with your tutorial.

Before proceeding further, I'd reset the preferences. https://inkscape.org/forums/questions/getting-back-to-square-one-and-starting-over-its-easy/

Hello Tyler,

I am sorry I was sick and in and out of emergency rooms the last 3 days. I'm back home now. I have followed your link and clicked the reset preferences button as directed. There was no change whatsoever. My swatches are still huge, unseparated, have no assigned names and the preferences reset did not make the Menu in the swatch window appear so I have nothing to select for editing or working with the gradient images.

I hope you are feeling better.

Maybe you can make the menu button visible by tearing-off the tab to make it a floating dialog.

We should also cover the basics:

1. Describe your OS (your computer's Operating System: Mac/Windows/Linux/etc. & version).
2. Describe if Inkscape was newly installed, or upgraded from an earlier version.
3. Describe the version of Inkscape and the installer you used (the file you downloaded from the website: .msi/.exe/.zip/other... AppImage/Snap/PPA/etc. ). 
4. Describe any special hardware being used, like tablet/stylus, external drives or multiple monitors.
5. Describe any helper/assistive programs or keyboard modifiers (macros, languages, etc.).

An entire desktop with the Inkscape window maximized may also be useful.

Hello Tyler,

Thank you for the kind words, I'm quickly feeling better.

Unfortunately dragging the swatch window to be free floating did not generate the menu button.

I am doing this on a Linux Mint 21.3 | Cinnamon machine with a triple monitor setup. Standard peripherals are used. Inkscape is freshly installed from the Software manager, and no previous program settings or files were ever imported.

Of the two versions of Inkscape avail in the linux default software manager I chose the standard rather than flatpak install. 

I do have another available Mint machine in the den, I believe I will log on there and download the Flatpak to it, and transfer over and test it with the metal gradients .svg file.

I will let you know how the flatpak install operates shortly. I have included a screenshot of the inkspace screen with swatch window detached as requested.

Yep the install was the problem. I just installed flatpak on my HP backup Mint box and imported the file and the swatch window has a menu button :)

OK, I am at the final steps and shouldn't need too much further help. I have the swatch window filled with the 36 gradients equally depicted apart from each other and generically named as they should be. I confirmed the checkbox in cleanup wasn't ticked, the last two instructions I see from you are:

• Delete all the objects on the canvas.
• Save the document as a template named MetallicGrads or similar, and/or not check the box to make it the default template.

I did a file>close to delete all the objects on the canvas, but this deleted all the items in the swatch window leaving nothing to save. How should I have performed this step please?

Paint Servers may also be used for gradients.

The User paint servers folder and User templates folder is listed in and can be opened from Inkscape Preferences-System. You can copy files directly to these folders.

Open the Object - Paint Servers... panel to use them.

Attached is my testfiles from my Paint and Templates folders.
 

Hello Aero,

This is fantastic info thank you, I have found the paint and templates subdirs in my ~/.config/inkscape directory and copied your .svg file to each directory. When I opened Inkscape and selected Object>Pain Servers there was some camaflague image and some patterns but none of the 36 gradients from the svg are showing. 

Did I do something wrong?

What server did you select in the Paint Servers panel?

I looked at all four that were available:

All Paint Servers

Current Document

Patterns

Hatches

I saw nothing but default looking files in all 4 server options

Sounds like Metallic.svg was not copied to the Paint folder?
Maybe restart Inkscape?

I believe I have the documents where they need to be, see attached image.

I have restarted at least 3 times as I'm trying to follow an online tutorial and it's impossible because I am not seeing the same screen nor is my inkscape accepting the same values as shown in the tute.

It works here in Inkscape 1.3.2 on Windows.

Perhaps the issue is that I am trying this on a linux box. I can switch my KVM and load inkscape on my windows machine but for the time being I believe I am going to use BoxySVG editor on linux to take the metallic gradient .svg apart and save into 36 separate .svg files, that my GIMP will accept in my personal user graidients custom directory and make avail in-program.

Linux is the best platform to use Inkscape, it is developed in Linux and ported to other OSs.