Inkscape Beginner's Guide

299 Pages·2012·11.49 MB·English

by  Bethany Hiitola

Inkscape
Beginner's Guide
Create attractive layout designs, logos, brochures, icons,
and more using the Inkscape vector graphics editor
Bethany Hiitola
BIRMINGHAM - MUMBAI
Inkscape
Beginner's Guide
Copyright © 2012 Packt Publishing
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First published: May 2012
Production Reference: 1170512
Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.
Livery Place
35 Livery Street
Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.
ISBN 978-1-84951-720-1
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Cover Image by Asher Wishkerman ([email protected])
Credits
Author Project Coordinator
Bethany Hiitola Joel Goveya
Reviewers Proofreader
Mark Bystry Chris Brown
Jose Olarte III
Richard Querin Indexer
Monica Ajmera Mehta
Sylvia Slokker
Graphics
Acquisition Editor
Manu Joseph
Sarah Cullington
Valentina D'Souza
Lead Technical Editor
Hithesh Uchil Production Coordinator
Melwyn D'Sa
Technical Editors
Ankita Shashi Cover Work
Melwyn D'Sa
Manali Mehta
Manasi Poonthottam
Copy Editors
Leonard D'Silva
Laxmi Subramanian
About the Author
Bethany Hiitola is a working writer. She has worked as a technical writer and multimedia
developer for over 12 years. She spends the rest of her time as a wife, mother, and caretaker
to pets. She has written more user manuals than she can count, essays, short stories,
academic papers, press releases, and feature articles. More details about her writing and life
are at her website: www.bethanyhiitola.com
Without you Matt, this book wouldn't have been possible. You are
my everything.
About the Reviewers
Mark Bystry is a design engineer by trade. He is also an open source software enthusiast
with a penchant for graphic art. Drawing and illustration, 3D modeling, desktop publishing,
photography, and videography are just a few of his many interests. Those things also spill
into his daily work duties. Mark has come to rely on Inkscape as well as several other leading
open source applications to achieve a full range of graphic tasks.
Several years ago Mark teamed up with his online pal, Richard Querin, when they recognized
a void within the Inkscape user community, specifically the lack of educational information
dedicated to the use of Inkscape. Their vision was of a series of instructional videos geared
towards beginners.
Since that time Richard and Mark have made over one hundred videos demonstrating various
functions within the application. Though their video series has tapered off, mainly due to their
insatiable need to explore all that the technological world has to offer, they still remain avid
users of Inkscape and continue to guide novice users in the achievement of their goals.
Jose Olarte III is a graphic designer and photographer from Baguio City, Philippines. He
specializes in: user interface design for web, mobile and desktop platforms; print design for
magazines and other publications; logo and icon design. When he's not busy pushing pixels
and stretching ems, he gets his social fix by tweeting away his thoughts: twitter.com/
brownspank
I would like to thank my wife Vanessa for putting up with my extended
hours and sharing my passion for work, without which I wouldn't have the
strength and motivation to move forward with my creative endeavors.
Richard Querin is a practicing structural engineer with a passion for graphic design,
photography, and other creative pursuits. He has contributed graphic design work to several
different free and open source projects including websites, mobile and desktop applications,
conference graphics, and print advertisements. He has also done numerous Inkscape video
tutorials as a co-contributor to the screencasters.heathenx.org website.
I would like to thank my family for putting up with my creative antics and
providing me the time and space to take on creative pursuits such as
these. Thanks also go to my friend and Inkscape compatriot Mark Bystry
for his help throughout the years and to Joel Goveya for his patience when
it came to getting my reviews back. And finally, a special thanks to my
wonderful daughter Emily for making fatherhood an absolute delight.
Sylvia Slokker is a graphics freelancer and IT professional. She started her career in web
design and development in 2001, abandoning the career path of process engineer after
almost 10 years.
Sylvia moved continents to chase a dream and currently works as a web developer in
Australia. She has been creating vector designs since 1994, using both commercial as
well as open source software. Nowadays, she uses Inkscape almost exclusively for all
her vector work. Sylvia writes tutorials for the web under the nickname Syllie and runs:
verysimpledesigns.com as a tutorial site for the novice Inkscape artist.
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Table of Contents
Preface 1
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Vector Graphics 7
What are vector graphics? 8
Programs that use vector graphics 8
Vector formats 9
Scalable Vector Graphics 9
Advantages of an open-standard vector format 10
Additional advantages of SVG vector images over proprietary formats 10
Disadvantages of vector graphics over non-vector formats 11
Determining when to use vector or rasterized graphics 11
Time for action – basic design 12
Time for action – vector versus rasterized images 13
Time for action – building brochure files 14
Summary 16
Chapter 2: Installing and Opening Inkscape 17
Inkscape's features 17
Installing Inkscape 18
Time for action – downloading Inkscape 19
Troubleshooting installation 20
The basics of the software 21
Time for action – getting started with Inkscape 22
Understanding a new document 28
Time for action – learning more about the main screen 28
Summary 34
Chapter 3: How to Manage Files 35
Creating new files 35
Using predefined-sized document dimensions 36