Inkscape: Guide to a Vector Drawing Program

Inkscape: Guide to a Vector Drawing Program

by Tavmjong Bah
Released July 2007
Publisher(s): Pearson
ISBN: 9780131357945

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Book description

Inkscape, An Open-Source Vector Drawing Program is THE GUIDE to the Inkscape program. The shorter, web-based, version is linked directly to under the program's Help menu. This book is both an introduction and reference for the Inkscape drawing program. With Inkscape, one can produce a wide variety of art, from photo-realistic drawings to organizational charts. Inkscape uses SVG, a powerful vector based drawing language and W3C web standard, as its native format. SVG drawings can be directly viewed by web browsers such as Firefox and Opera. A subset of SVG has been adopted by the mobile phone market. Inkscape is available free for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Solaris operating systems. The first third of the book is devoted to eleven tutorials that progress in difficulty from very basic to very complex. The remainder of the book covers each facet of Inkscape in detail. Advance topics covered include the use of Inkscape's powerful tiling tool, built-in bitmap tracing, and SVG use on the web. The book includes plenty of tips (and warnings) about the use of Inkscape and SVG.

Table of contents

  1. Copyright
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. About the Author
  4. Overview of What is In This Short Cut
  5. 1. Introduction
    1. How to Use This Book
    2. Vector Graphics
    3. SVG
    4. The Inkscape Program
    5. Help
  6. 2. Quick Start
    1. The Anatomy of the Inkscape Window
    2. The Swedish Flag - A Short Example
    3. The European Flag - A More Elaborate Example
    4. A Hiking Club Logo - An Exercise in Paths
    5. The Northern Pacific Railway Logo - A Tracing Example
    6. A Box for Cards - An Isometric Projection
    7. A Can of Soup - A Three-Dimension Drawing with Gradients
    8. A Vine Design - A Tiling Example
    9. A Neon Sign - Animation
    10. A Bank Note - Security Features
    11. A Bottle - Photorealism
  7. 3. Files
    1. Opening and Saving Files
    2. Importing Files
    3. Exporting Files
      1. Exporting PNG (Portable Network Graphic) Files
      2. Exporting Other File Types
    4. Printing Files
    5. Vacuuming Files
  8. 4. Changing the View
    1. Panning the Canvas
    2. Zooming the Canvas
    3. Miscellaneous View Commands
      1. Hide/Show
      2. Hide/Show Dialogs
      3. Outline
      4. Full Screen Mode
      5. Switch Windows
      6. Duplicate Window
      7. Icon Preview
  9. 5. Editing Basics
    1. Undo and Redo
    2. Selecting Objects
      1. Selecting with the Mouse
      2. Selecting with the Keyboard
      3. Selecting with the Find Dialog
    3. Copying, Pasting, and Deleting Objects
    4. Clones
    5. Ordering Objects (Z-order)
    6. Groups
    7. Layers
      1. Layers Dialog
      2. Layers Menu
      3. Status Bar
  10. 6. Positioning and Transforming
    1. Inkscape Coordinates
    2. Transformations
      1. Transforms with the Mouse
        1. Translations
        2. Scaling, Rotating, and Skewing
          1. Rotation Center
          2. Scaling
          3. Rotating and Skewing
      2. Transforms with the Keyboard
        1. Translations
        2. Scaling
        3. Rotation
        4. Flipping
      3. Transforms with the Tool Controls Bar
      4. Transforms with the Transform Dialog
        1. Move Tab
        2. Scale Tab
        3. Rotate Tab
        4. Skew Tab
        5. Matrix Tab
      5. Transforms with Paste Size Commands
      6. Transforms with the XML Editor
    3. Snapping
      1. Grid
      2. Guide Lines
      3. Snap Parameters
    4. Alignment and Distribution of Objects
      1. Align
      2. Distribute: Uniform
      3. Distribute: Non-Uniform
      4. Distribute: Remove Overlaps
      5. Grid Arrange
  11. 7. Geometric Shapes
    1. Rectangles and Squares
    2. Ellipses, Circles, and Arcs
    3. Regular Polygons and Stars
    4. Spirals
  12. 8. Paths
    1. Bezier Curves
    2. Creating Paths
      1. The Freehand Tool
      2. The Bezier Tool
      3. The Calligraphy Tool
      4. Paths From Other Objects
        1. Object to Path
        2. Stroke to Path
    3. Editing Paths
      1. Using the Node Tool
        1. Selecting Nodes
        2. Editing Nodes with the Mouse
          1. Nodes
          2. Handles
        3. Editing Nodes with the Keyboard
          1. Translations
          2. Scaling Handles
          3. Rotating Handles
        4. Using the Node Tool-Tool Controls
        5. Editing Nodes with the Align and Distribute Dialog
        6. Sculpting Nodes
      2. Path Offset Commands
      3. Miscellaneous Path Commands
    4. Path Operations
  13. 9. Text
    1. Creating Text
      1. Entering Regular Text
      2. Entering Flowed Text
    2. Selecting Text
    3. Editing Text
    4. Formatting Text
      1. Formatting with the Tool Controls
      2. Formatting with the Keyboard
      3. Formatting with the Text and Font Dialog
    5. Kerning, Shifting, and Rotating Characters
      1. Kerning and Shifting
      2. Rotating
    6. Text on a Path
    7. Text in a Shape
  14. 10. Attributes
    1. Fill and Stroke Paint
      1. Flat (Solid) Colors
        1. Fill and Stroke Dialog - Color
          1. RGB
          2. HSL
          3. CMYK
          4. Wheel
        2. Palette
        3. Swatches Dialog
        4. Style Indicator
          1. Display
          2. Fill Indicator Pop-up Menu
        5. Dropper Tool
      2. Gradients
        1. Applying Gradients
        2. Defining Gradients
        3. Adjusting Gradients
      3. Patterns
        1. Creating Patterns
        2. Using Patterns
        3. Adjusting Patterns
        4. Hatchings
      4. Fill Rule
        1. Even-odd rule
        2. Non-zero rule
    2. Stroke Style
      1. Stroke Width
      2. Join Style
      3. Cap Style
      4. Dashes
      5. Markers
      6. Complex Strokes
  15. 11. Clipping and Masking
    1. Clipping
    2. Masking
  16. 12. Filter Effects
    1. Gaussian Blur
      1. Drop Shadow
      2. Asymmetric Blurring
      3. Gradient Blurring
      4. Clipping and Masking
      5. Tile Clones
  17. 13. XML Editor
    1. Basic Usage
    2. Editing XML Nodes
    3. Examples
      1. Adding Color to a Marker Arrow
      2. Underlined Text
      3. Gaussian Blurs and Drop Shadows
  18. 14. Tiling
    1. Symmetry Tab
    2. Shift Tab
    3. Scale Tab
    4. Rotation Tab
    5. Blur and Opacity Tab
      1. Blur
      2. Opacity
    6. Color Tab
    7. Trace
    8. Tricks
  19. 15. Tracing Bitmaps
    1. Single Scans
      1. Brightness Cutoff
      2. Edge Detection
      3. Color Quantization
    2. Multiple Scans
      1. Brightness Steps
      2. Colors
      3. Grays
      4. Options
        1. Smooth
        2. Stack scans
        3. Remove background
    3. Common Options
      1. Suppress speckles
      2. Smooth corners
      3. Optimize paths
    4. SIOX
  20. 16. Connectors
    1. Creating Connectors
    2. Modifying Connectors
    3. Routing Connectors
  21. 17. Effects
    1. Color
      1. Desaturate
      2. Brighter
      3. Darker
      4. Grayscale
      5. Less Hue
      6. Less Light
      7. Less Saturation
      8. More Hue
      9. More Light
      10. More Saturation
      11. Negative
      12. Remove Blue
      13. Remove Red
      14. Remove Green
      15. Custom
    2. Export
      1. Export Group
    3. Fretboard Designer
    4. Generate from Path
      1. Blur Edge
      2. Extrude
      3. Inside/Outside Halo
      4. Interpolate
      5. Pattern Along Path
    5. Images
      1. Extract One Image
      2. Embed All Images
    6. Modify Path
      1. Envelope
      2. Add Nodes
      3. Color Markers to Match Stroke
      4. Flatten Bezier
      5. Fractalize
      6. Jitter Nodes
      7. Fractal (Koch)
      8. Perspective
      9. Radius Randomizer
      10. Segment Straightener
      11. Whirl
    7. Render
      1. Grid
      2. Barcode
      3. Function Plotter
      4. Gear
      5. LaTeX Formula
      6. Lorem Ipsum
      7. L-System (Fractal-Lindenmayer)
      8. Random Tree
      9. Spirograph
    8. Visualize Path
      1. Measure Path
      2. Draw Handles
      3. Number Nodes
  22. 18. SVG and the Web
    1. Simple SVG Display
      1. Using Object Tags
      2. Using Name Spaces
    2. Adding Links
    3. Using Style Sheets
    4. Simple Animation
  23. 19. Customization
    1. Inkscape Preferences Dialog
    2. Inkscape Configuration Files
      1. Preferences
        1. Outline Mode Colors
        2. SVG Output
      2. Custom Templates
      3. Custom Swatches or Palettes
      4. Custom Markers
      5. Custom Keyboard Shortcuts
  24. 20. Using the Command Line
    1. General Options
    2. Export Options
      1. Format Options
      2. Export Region Options
      3. Export Property Options
    3. Query Options
  25. 21. Challenges
    1. Red Spiral
    2. Knot
    3. Squares
    4. Pine Cone
    5. Spiral Gyral
  26. A. Inkview
  27. B. File Format
    1. Default Template File
    2. SVG Groups with Objects
    3. Groups of Objects
    4. Paths
    5. Defs
  28. C. Spheres
    1. Sphere with Gradient Shading and Shadow
    2. Sphere with Hatched Shading and Shadow
    3. Sphere with Dot Shading and Shadow
    4. Sphere with Text Shading and Shadow
  29. D. Solutions for Challenges
    1. Red Spiral
    2. Knot
    3. Squares
    4. Pine Cone
    5. Spiral Gyral
  30. E. List of Dialogs
  31. F. Tips for Illustrator Converts
    1. Key Mappings
    2. Terminology
      1. Illustrator to Inkscape
  32. Glossary
  33. Inside Back Cover

Product information

  • Title: Inkscape: Guide to a Vector Drawing Program
  • Author(s): Tavmjong Bah
  • Release date: July 2007
  • Publisher(s): Pearson
  • ISBN: 9780131357945