Inkscape 101

Lesson Guide

Class Objectives:

Learn the basics of Inkscape to give you the confidence to design and modify your own vector files for use on the Laser Cutter and/or CNC mills (or just digital drawings in general)
Replicate a simple vector image

You Will Need:

Laptop with Inkscape installed
Mouse with scroll wheel is highly recommended

Why Inkscape?

Of all the options of Vector Graphics software, we have opted for Inkscape because it is accessible on all major computing platforms (MacOSX, Windows, and Linux) and best of all, it is free of charge to download and use forever!
It is a great program to use for many forms of projects: web graphics, prints, digital designs, and many more, for example – the laser cutter and CNC mills.

What is an SVG file?

Scalable Vector Graphic files are great for web and mobile uses.
Being a vector file, you do not have to worry about loss of resolution when scaling prior to exporting either.

General Layout

Like any software for the first time, the interface can be a tad overwhelming seeing as there are so many buttons. We will go over the general layout of how the tools and functions are grouped.

Menu Bar – All the core features and functions all categorized

Toolbox – The most commonly used tools/functions within clicking range

Toolbar – These are special features that are specifically programed to whichever tool is active

Snap Features – Helps you keep things on a grid (or not, your choice)

Canvas – Where your images are supposed to go

Rulers – For those of you who are meticulous about spacing and alignment

Colour Palette – You can’t taste the rainbow but you can click on its colours

Information Bar – Some key information about your file/selected object can be found here.

Navigation

Zooming In and Out – You can zoom in/out by holding ‘CTRL’ on the keyboard while rolling your scroll wheel, or you can use the ‘+’ and ‘-‘ keys.

Panning – Rolling your scroll wheel alone with allow you to pan you view up and down, and doing so while holding ‘SHIFT’ will let you pan left and right

Free-Pan – Press and hold your scroll wheel while dragging to freely pan you view without having to move any objects

Centre on Screen/Drawing – If you ever zoom/pan to a point where you can’t see your drawing and having a hard time getting back, hit ‘4’ to zero in on your canvas, or ‘5’ on everything that you have drawn.

Document Settings, Grids and Guidelines

Before drawing anything, we will set up our canvas to represent the size of our hypothetical material: 2' x 2' piece of plywood. You can do this by going to File > Document Properties (Or CTRL + Shift + D; D for document.)

Always set your preferred unit of measurement in first before setting your values. If you type in the value first and then change the unit, Inkscape will auto calculate the value of the previous unit into what it would be in the next unit. 24 pixels will not become 24 inches.

One you’ve done that you can exit out of the Document settings and you should see that your canvas is a different shape and grid is active. To toggle your grid view, you can go to View > Grid or use # (which kind of looks like a grid too so that should be easy to remember).

If you don’t want to use a grid but would like a guideline or two for referencing, you can generate guides by clicking and dragging from the side rulers depending on the orientation of the guide you want. For angled lines, double click to get the Guideline settings and enter in a numeric value for the angle that you want.

To toggle guidelines, you can press the “|” key that is shared with the “\” (it is not a letter key, it is a line symbol; line for guide lines), and to delete a guideline, hover over it until it is red and press delete.

Basic Shapes

For the common shapes such as boxes, ellipses, stars and spirals, there are pre-made functions for them in your toolbox. We will start with the box.

Once activated, all you have to do is just click and drag to generate a four-sided object. If you want a perfect square, hold CTRL while dragging and it will constrain your box’s proportions to a common ratio.

When you have drawn a box, you will see three nodes appear. The two square nodes are for changing the dimensions of the box. The circular node will allow you to set a bevel on the corners, rounding them out. Fun fact: if you do maximum bevel on a perfect square, you get a perfect circle.

hen you have drawn a box, you will see three nodes appear. The two square nodes are for changing the dimensions of the box. The circular node will allow you to set a bevel on the corners, rounding them out. Fun fact: if you do maximum bevel on a perfect square, you get a perfect circle.

The circle tool is drawn the same way as the box; activate the tool and then click and drag. Hold CTRL while dragging to constrain proportions if you want a perfect circle.

The nodes that appear for the circle are different than the one of the boxes. The circular node that appears is for adjusting the arc of the ellipse. Fantastic if you are creating arcs or going for a Pacman like object.

Trick to closing the ellipse: click on the whole button in the toolbar. Don’t drive yourself insane by trying to manually line up the nodes so it is a completed arc.

For the star/polygon shapes, you can modify the number of points and how rounded the tips will be.

Spirals can also be modified in terms of how many “rings” there will be as well as how spaced they are.

Manipulating and Selecting Objects

So we have drawn all these shapes but we happens when we want to move them, scale them, rotate them, or just plain delete them? You can do that while having the Select tool activated.

When you do, you can click on an object and you should see a selection box appear with little arrows on the sides and corners.

Click and drag the shape to move it or click on the arrows to scale the object. Hold CTRL while dragging a scaling handle to constrain the proportions. Hold SHIFT to scale uniformly from the center of the object as opposed to the opposite side of the handle. Hold both CTRL and SHIFT to do both.

Note: When scaling objects, you might also notice your lines thinning/thickening as you make your adjustments. To keep the line thickness the same (or not) you can toggle that feature in your toolbar.

You can also use the arrow keys to move selected objects. Doing so will move the object by 1px in the direction chosen. You can hold SHIFT while tapping an arrow key to move them by 10px instead.

For more precise placement/dimensions, you can enter in the values in the toolbar.

Modify the X and Y values for the placement of the object and modify the W and H values for the width and height. (Use the lock icon if you want to constrain the proportions while adjusting the width or height.)

If you click on the object again, your arrows will switch; this is the rotation/skew mode. The corner arrows will allow you rotate the object while the side arrows will allow you to skew in the selected direction to make it look like it is leaning. Hold CTRL while rotating to precise-rotate in 15deg increments.

You can also redefine the point of rotation by clicking and dragging the cross mark to the desired spot. This is super helpful if you happen to be drawing for animation purposes.

You can also use the auto-rotate buttons and flip buttons to auto-rotate by 90deg or completely mirror-flip.

While moving, you may also find that your objects are snapping to your grid or to some invisible reference point. This can be both useful as well as inconvenient. When you don’t need snapping to be on, you can toggle it by clicking on the snap button or pressing “%” on your keyboard. (Sorry, no easy memory trick for that shortcut I’m afraid)

To delete objects, simply select the one you want to delete and hit delete. In terms of multiple objects, there are two ways you can go about selecting multiple objects: holding SHIFT while manually selecting the pieces (ideal if you just need specific objects selected) or doing a box selection method.

For the box selection method, all you have to do is just click and drag on the screen to generate a selection bound.

Note:
This method does not select objects, it selects nodes. So if you want an object to be part of the selection bound, you need to make sure the whole object (every node) is included or it will be omitted from the selection.

Colours and Outlines

Let’s talk colours. Colours not only spruce up your images, but in terms of laser, colours will enable you to colour coordinate specific functions and settings on the laser cutter. There are 2 elements to each object that can be coloured: the fill which is the inside of the shape, and the stroke which is the outline.

You can apply/change colours using 2 methods. First one is to use the colour palette at the bottom of the screen. You can click on any swatch to fill in a shape with the selected colour or to remove the colour (the box with the X), and holding SHIFT while doing so will let you change the colour of the stroke.

The other method is to open up the colour mixer and you can set your own colours that may not be in the palette below. Open it up by going to Object > Fill and Stroke, or CTRL + SHIFT + F (F for Fill!). Depending on how you like to mix colours, you may stick to specific mixing ranges, or use the colour wheel (my personal preference).

The outer ring will let you choose the hue, and the inner triangle will let you select the saturation. You can just click, no need to drag your mouse.

If you have a specific hex code in mind, you can enter that in as well.

Note:
You need to have an object selected or the buttons will not be clickable; Inkscape doesn’t know what you’re trying to modify.

For translucent colours, you can adjust the alpha levels.

Note:
For laser and CNC projects, you cannot have any transparencies of any kind in your file. Make sure the alpha is set to the max or you might find that your objects will not be visible in the other programs.

For adjusting the stroke colour, switch to the stroke tab.

In terms of line thickness, laser and CNC, you will need to keep your outlines to the defaulted 1px as the line thickness will be determined by the machines, not the files.

However, for graphic design purposes, you might want your outlines to be thicker, or even patterned. You can change that in the Stroke Style tab. You can set the width of the lines, and you can even switch from solid lines to dotted/dashed ones as well.

Steps, Groups and Layers

While drawing you will notice that the newest object will always be on top of the previous object. But what happens if you want to switch things around? Well you can change the Z-step in select mode.

Have the object you want changed selected and the in the toolbar have it so you adjust the placement by one step at a time or send it immediately to the top/bottom of the stack

If you want to take it to the next level and have the objects and make it easier to move/hide multiple objects, you can either group objects together or move them to another layer.

For grouping, this will take several objects and make them into one entity for easier manipulation. You will still be able to modify each object simply by clicking on the object until only one is selected. To group, SHIFT or box select all the involved objects and hit CTRL + G (G for group!) and if you want to ungroup ever, you can hit CTRL + U for ungroup (U for ungroup).

Note: for Laser and CNC files, the final version for print must be UNGROUPED. Sometimes there are strange errors when objects are grouped so make sure they are either combined (not grouped, different feature we will talk more about later) or completely separated.

If you want to toggle visibility of certain elements in your file, you can separate them onto layers. First open up the Layer’s box.

You can do this one of 3 ways: first going to Object > Layers, or clicking on the Layer’s button in the menu, or CTRL + SHIFT + L (L for layer!).

Create another layer either above or below your current one by pressing on the + button.

Then select the object(s) you want to isolate onto another layer and right-click on the selection and choose Move to Layer. It will prompt you to select which layer.

Now you can toggle visibility or lock the layer from being edited.

Duplication, alignment, distribution

Now you’ve gone through all the trouble of getting your shapes to be a particular size and maybe even colour. Rather than going through the trouble of setting up the shapes again, you can duplicate it which can be done one of two ways: copy/paste, duplicate.

Copy/paste is a common known action that is available in most programs and operates the same in Inkscape. Select the object(s) you want to copy and hit CTRL + C for copy and then hit CTRL + V for paste. If you’re not keyboard savvy, you can also right click on your selection for a mini popup menu and select the two actions.

The other option, duplicate, will allow you to duplicate a copy of the selected object(s) on top of the original. Hit CTRL + D (d for duplicate!) and then drag the shape off to its own spot on the screen.

WARNING:
If you’re not careful, you may find you have many overlapping shapes after moving the desired amounts of duplicates. Make sure to keep track of all of your duplicates or delete the remaining shapes until only the original remains.

With all of your duplicates in existence, it is time to talk about formations. You could manually input X and Y coordinates for each object but that could take a lot of time if you have many objects. Instead, make Inkscape do the work for you with the Align and Distribute menu. Open it up by going to Object > Align and Distribute (CTRL + SHIT + A; A or align!)

The buttons can look a little confusing at first but all you need to know is that the red line depicts how items will be aligned relative to your preferred mode. I usually leave my setting at “Last Selected” meaning whatever I select last is what all the other pieces should be relative to.

I would like all the centers to line up vertically, so I am going to select the “Align Vertically”.

Next I want them to be all spaced evenly so I will hit the distribute centers equally vertically.

And voila! Inkscape quickly arranged my shapes in a more organized manner for me. This menu will become your best friend so take the time to become familiar with each arrangement and mode.

Take a brain break; this was a lot of information to process so far.

Boolean Operations

Let’s talk about shapes that aren’t just simple ellipses and boxes. By overlapping the basic objects, you can use Boolean operations to combine/subtract them into more unique shapes.

Using the shapes we already generated, we will practice with the different Boolean methods.

Union

With union the two paths will combine into one singular path and therefore one object.

Difference

With difference, the top-most object will cut out whatever is overlapping the bottom object and will remove itself completely.

Intersect

Intersect is where both objects will disappear except for the area where both objects were overlapping.

Exclusion

Exclusion is the inverse of Intersect where both objects will remain however the overlapping area would be removed.

Division

Division will use the top object as a template and then removing the template completely, leaving just the area it was covering.

Cut Path

This one is similar to that of Division where it will separate the bottom object at the points where the two objects overlap however instead of the inside also taking the shape of the top object, the bottom object is just cut at the meeting points.

Note:
If trying to simplify your project by combining paths, be considerate of any fills you are hoping to include for rastering. Union/Combine may make things fill strangely. It is recommended anything that will be a vectorized cut/trace be drawn as separate objects than those that will be filled for rastering.

Drawing

For some, using just the basic shapes will be plenty enough, but for others it would be fantastic if you could design and modify your own shapes completely by scratch. It is absolutely doable with the provided drawing tools: freehand, Bezier, and calligraphy.

I will actually talk about the Bezier curve first and will discuss the freehand and the calligraphy tool after the editing portion.

The Bezier pen tool will be a unique experience for those who have never worked with vectors before as it is much different than other drawing tools many have used before. Unlike the freehand tool where you just click and drag to draw lines, the Bezier uses a series of clicks to generate nodes on the screen that Inkscape will use to mathematically calculate lines for us. So instead of pressing and holding as you draw, you will plot out a constellation of nodes by clicking (do not hold and drag!)

We will start by drawing some common shapes, like a triangle. Click your first point, move the mouse and click the next point, repeat for the third point, and close the shape by clicking on the starting node.

Take a few minutes and try drawing an assortment of hard-sided shapes.

Note:
If you accidentally pressed and dragged instead of clicking, you can cancel your current path by hitting ESC, or continue on and learn the fix for the accidental curved nodes later in the editing portion.

For a singular straight line, after plotting your two points you can hit ENTER to end the path there.

So that is straight edged shapes, what about curves? That’s where the editing portion comes in. To help with the learning process, we are going to start with an exploding text bubble shape.

Editing

A delightful thing about working with vector nodes is that no point is permanently set and you wouldn’t have to redraw if you made a slight error.

All you need to do is activate the Node Editing mode and you can move nodes around, and convert from corners into curves.

To move a node around, select the node until it is blue and just click and drag it around. For multiple nodes, you can either box select or SHIFT select.

To convert a pointed node into a curved on, you can press one of two buttons: make selected nodes smooth, or make selected nodes symmetrical. When you do, handlebars will appear.

For the ‘make selected nodes smooth’ you can change each handlebar to have a different kind of curve on each side of the node. For the other mode, if you change one handlebar it will move the same way on the other side.

Tip:
Did you accidentally press and drag while using the Bezier tool? You can click on this button to make selected nodes a corner again.

If you ever wish to add extra nodes, you can double click on a line to add a node. To delete a node just select it and hit delete.

Complete this little intro to edit mode by transforming your text bubble into a cloud.

Now that you have seen what edit mode is for, let’s talk the other two drawing tools. Both freehand and calligraphy are press and drag tools meaning you can draw your shapes as envisioned rather than plotting a constellation of nodes. However, if you wish to clean up your drawings, you may find that you will have to deal with many nodes.

For some, they may have the patience to move around and delete nodes but for most, it would be easier to draw with the Bezier up front.

Inset and Outset

You have made your outline and you now want another shape identical to it but slightly smaller than the original, or slightly bigger. When you duplicate and then scale you’ll notice that the proportions skew slightly. That is because when you’re scaling, you’re only adjusting the overall size and dimensions of the shape.

You can see in the example that the distance between the lines is not the same all around.

To size your outlines while maintaining an even distance all around, you will want to either Inset or Outset the shape.

This will only adjust the outline 1px at a time however. If you’re attempting this with a large object, you might not see anything unless you’ve inset/outset many times, and when you do it may generate extra nodes and degrade your image.

It would be best to use Dynamic Offset which will give you a node that you can control the size. Now you can have a border/rim that is identical to your original shape.

Take another brain break; this was a lot of information to process so far.

Text

Being a computer software, it would be a bit silly if you couldn’t type up your text. You can type up your own words by using the

Text tool rather than trying to write it out.

Tip:

This tool can be frustrating if you aren’t aware of its quirks. For this tool, you can set your font style and size before or after typing, but sometimes not while you are typing. If you try to, you may find that it reverts to the previous settings when you try to save it, or it doesn’t render with the new information at all. Try to do all the typing first and then worry about style and size after.

To start typing, you can either click on the screen where you want to start, or click and drag a text box to contain your text within a certain range.

To customize text, you could change it up in the toolbar while the tool is active but I find it easiest to have the Text and Font menu. You can open it up using one of three ways: Text > Text and Font, the Text and Font button, or CTRL + SHIFT + T (T for text!).

With this menu, you can actually preview your font in the little display before re-rendering it on the canvas.

If you wish to arrange your text by changing its alignment, spacing, or subscript display, you can make modifications using the toolbar or the Features tab in the Text and Font settings.

Note
On MacOSX machines, alignment does not appear under features. You can only change text alignment using the toolbar.

Converting to Path

To help preserve your image for the laser/CNC, especially if some of your components are objects as opposed to editable paths, you can convert the objects to paths.

You do this by selecting the objects and then going to Object > Convert to Paths.

You should now see that the objects can be edited by using the node edit function rather than the previous methods.

Prepping Files for Laser & CNC

For MakerLabs’ machines, it is actually ideal to stick with Inkscape’s default save format of SVG. Retina Engrave/Full Spectrum (laser cutters) and VCarve (CNC) can both extrapolate information from your Inkscape files as is.

If you do wish to save it in another format, you can. PDF’s are the next recommended file format.

Exporting Renders

If you’re looking to export an image file, you can do so by using the Export PNG Image menu. Just follow the menu in a linear path and you should be able to export a PNG image of your drawing to be used however you see fit.

Export Area

Page – Everything on the canvas

Drawing – Everything drawn, including those off the canvas

Selection – Only what is in your selection bound

Custom – Whatever is within the custom defined X and Y coordinates

Image Size
How big the final image should be

Filename
Where the export will be saved to and what name (make sure to have .png appended at the end or it won’t export properly)

Export
Hit to run the export command

That is all you need to know about Inkscape in order to create files for the Laser Cutter and CNC, plus a little extra for those of you interested in graphic design.

There are obviously more tools and functions not actually covered in the class, but you can find plenty more resources available online.

Happy drawing!

Resources

https://inkscape.org/learn/tutorials/