The Inkscape Program

Inkscape is a free, but very powerful vector graphics program. Available for all computer formats (not tablets I am afraid!) You can download it for free from https://inkscape.org

It allows you to create your own custom graphics and add effects using built in filters for websites, banners, displays and even work sheets.

Introduction To Inkscape – Creating Custom Graphics For Websites, Displays & Lessons

Bitmap Vs Vector Graphics

Bitmap graphics are created using small dots. When you try to make a bitmap image bigger it appears blurry, or pixilated.

Bitmap file formats include JPEG or JPG, GIF & BMP.

Vector graphics arecreated using mathematical formulas. They can be rescaled without losing their clarity.

Vector file formats include PNG, SVG & EPS.

Bitmaps are perfect for photos that need millions of colours, but vector graphics are better for creating logos, clipart, website graphics or images you might want to rescale.

Basic Shapes

Using the basic shape tools you can create any shapes you like, including 3D boxes.

Every shape can have a fill colour and a stroke colour (the line around the outside.) This can be a solid colour or a gradient fill (fading from one colour to another.)

You can combine shapes to make new more complicated ones.

Lines There is the ability to draw free hand lines, straight lines and curves. Once you have drawn these lines you can adjust them using the node tool.

There is also a calligraphy pen.

Text

It’s easy to add text in any font, size or colour including gradient fill.

There are then so many combinations of effects and options you can use to make your text more dynamic.

You can use layers to separate your graphics and allow you to change the order of how they sit on top of each other.

It’s also easy to align objects and space them evenly.

Layers & Alignment

The Work Area

The work area can look very complicated and even a little scary. But once you know the important parts it looks more friendly.

1 Page guide – This is a guide to the page size selected. You do not have to stay in the guidelines as there is an option to export the whole drawing.

2 Menu Bar – Access to standard functions such as Save and printing, plus special menus for things like layers, text and shapes.

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3 Standard Tool Bar – Another way to Save and Open plus Copy, Cut and Paste, plus the ever important Undo. This sometimes appears down the right hand side of the page, but still has all the same icons on it.

4 Tools – Where you select tools to use on the page.

5 Tool Options – This bar changes and shows the options for the tool you have selected.

6 Colour Selection – The default colour bar gives you access to so many shades of different colours using the scroll bar underneath. There is a small arrow to the right of the bar that gives you more options of different colour schemes.

7 Fill / Stroke – Shows the fill and stroke colours that will be used when you draw a shape. Next to the stroke colour it shows the thickness of the stroke like. The box labelled O allows you to change the opacity (transparency) of the selected shape.

Step By Step This step-by-step guide is going to show you the basic skills and tools by creating a banner for a display. You can then use these skills to create labels, posters and graphics for displays.

Remember that if something does go wrong you just click on the undo icon or press ctrl + Z to undo the last action you carried out.

1 - Document Size

You will always find it easier to change the document size so the page outline helps you know where to place your graphics better.

Clicking File > Document Properties will bring up the window that will allow you to change the size of the page outline in the work area.

There are pre-set paper sizes you can select (1) and the orientation of them. (2)

It’s possible to dictate a custom width and height for your document, (3) this is especially handy if you are creating a banner. You can also select the measurement units you use. (4)

Changing the units in Display units (5) will change the units shown on the ruler in the work area.

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We are going to create a banner so we are going to change the custom size to 1000mm wide and 200mm high, or if you change the units to cm then 100cm wide and 20cm high. There is no Ok or apply button. You just type in the new settings and click the X in the top right corner.

2 – Quick Zooming

After you change the document size you may find the page guide goes off one side of the window and the scroll bar at the bottom will not let you scroll in that direction.

To centre the page window you can use the quick zoom icons in the standard tool bar.

1 – This instantly zooms in and centres on any object you select.

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2 – Resizes the window so that all objects are shown, even if they are outside of the page guide.

3 – Zooms to fit the page guide into the window.

So click on the 3rd one (Zoom to fit page into window) or press 5 on the keyboard to centre the page guide in the window.

3 – First Shape

Click on the Create rectangle and squares icon and then drag out a square on the screen by holding the left mouse button. It does not have to be the right shape, size or colour. These can all be changed later.

After you draw your shape you will see a dotted line around the outside to show it is selected.

You will see a small circle on the outside of the shape. With circles this small square when dragged with the mouse turns the circles into a semi-circle or an arc. With a square it lets you round the corners.

There will also be 2 small squares on the outside of the shape. With the mouse you can use these squares to reshape it

4 – Move It

There is another way to reshape and move objects. Click on the Select and transform objects tool and any object you click on will then have black arrows around the outside. Click again on the object and the arrows change.

One set of arrows point in all directions away from the shape. You can use these to resize the object in any direction by dragging an arrow with the mouse.

The other set of arrows curves around the corners and point along the edges.

The corner arrows allow you to rotate the object while the arrows along the sides allow you to “skew” the shape sideways or up and down.

Placing the cursor in the middle of the shape places a cross made of arrows next to it that then allows you to drag the shape and move it.

5 – Be Precise When you click on an object with the Select and transform objects tool the Tool option barshows the exact position and size of the object. You can type directly into these boxes to position and resize the object. The x axis runs left to right starting at the bottom left corner of the page guide while the y axis runs up and down, also starting at the bottom left corner of the page guide.

It positions object using their bottom left corner. For objects such as stars, circles or ellipses imagine a tight fitting box around the object and it positions it using the bottom left corner of that box.

We are going to make our object fill the page guide to use as a background so we are going to change these settings manually.

You can use the small arrows next to each box to increase or decrease the setting by small increments, but it’s much easier to click in the boxes and type in the amount you want.

Change x: to 0, y: to 0, W (width) to 1000 and H (height) to 200mm and your object should fill the page guide perfectly.

6 – Colour To change the fill or stroke colour of an object you first need to select the object using the Select and transform objects tool , then right clicking on a colour in the colour selection bar along the bottom.

A small window will pop up with the options Set fill and Set stroke.

Set fill is the colour inside the shape. Set stroke is the line around the outside of the shape.

The white square with the red cross means no colour.

7 – Outline

As well as setting the colour for the outline you can also change the width and style.

In the bottom left corner next to where it shows the colour for the stroke there is a number. This is the width of the stroke.

Double click on this number to open the Fill and Stroke options window. From here you can change the width of the line. You can change it from a solid line to different styles of dashes.

Markers is for single lines with ends. It allows you to select shapes that will appear at either end of the line, such as a pair of scissors, arrows and squares.

The Join and Cap option effect how the stroke looks on corners or at the end of lines.

Order is for when you add markers to a line and allows you to change the order of the stroke, fill and marker.

8 – All Out Of Shape

When you change the width of the stroke it will affect the size and position of your shape. So make sure you select the object with the selection tool and check the properties in the tool options.

If they are different, simply change them back to the settings you originally set them to.

9 – Adding Text To add text, first click on the Create and edit text objects icon and then click on the workspace. Type the letter, word or sentence you would like.

Do not worry about the location, size, colour or font for now. All off these can be changed at any point.

10 – Basic Editing Text Just like with shapes you can adjust the size, position and rotation of text using the Selection tool.

Remember that every time you click with the Selection tool it changes the options that allow you to change the size, rotation or skew.

11 – Advance Editing TextThere is a lot of advanced editing you can do with text. Even if you typed in a whole sentence you can edit the whole thing, a specific word or individual letter.

First click on the Create and edit text objects icon and then click and drag over the letter, word or words you want to change. You can also select all the text in a section by treble clicking.

Here are the important text options that appear in the Tool options bar when you select text with the Create and edit text objects icon .

Font selection – allows you to choose from the fonts

installed on the computer.

Adjusts space between all the letters. Make the word

or sentence shorter.

Rotates individual letters.

Changes the vertical position of letters compared to the

others in a word or sentence.

Changes the horizontal position of letters or wordcompared to the others in a word or sentence.

Adjusts space between all the words. Makes the

sentence shorter.

Font size, instead of using the selection tool.

Some fonts allows you to choose between normal,

bold and italic.

Justification of text.

12 – Text Colour With the text selected you right click on a colour in the Colour selection bar and then select Set fill or Set stroke.

And just like with shapes you can change the width of the stroke by double clicking on the numbers next to the stroke colour.

If you don’t want a stoke colour then right click on the white square with the red cross and select Set stroke.

13 – Gradient Fill As well as filling objects and text with solid colour we can use a gradient fill.

Select the object or text you want to add gradient fill to using the Selection tool.

Then using the Create and edit gradients tool drag a line across the object or text you selected. As you drag the line you will see the fill colour change.

You can now change the colours used in the fill. Click on the drop down menu in Stops on the Tool option bar. There will be two option in there. A colour for each point on the gradient fill line. Select one and then left click on a colour in the Colour selection bar. The colour on the object will then change to your selected colour. Go back to Stops and choose the other option in the drop down menu and choose another colour.

14 – Edit Gradient Fill You can add to or edit gradient fills at any time.

Simply select the Create and edit gradients and click on the object with the gradient fill to you want to edit and the original line you created reappears.

You can add extra points to the line by double clicking with the Create and edit gradients tool. You can move these points along the line by dragging them with the mouse.

These new points allow you to add more colours.

Click on Stops in the Tool options bar and you will see there is now extra options. You can choose new colours for these like you did the first ones. You now have a multi-coloured gradient fill.

You can add other images to your work from the Internet.

Find an image on the Internet as you normally would (Google images, Pintrest…) and right click and select copy.

Then on the workspace in Inkscape right click and select Paste.

You can then use the Lower selection tools to place the image behind or in front of other objects or text.

15 – Adding Images

16 – Removing Backgrounds You might have a bit of clipart and you want to remove the background to make it look better on your banner or poster. It’s always best to start with an image that has a single colour background, such as white.

Make sure the image is selected and then click on Path then Trace Bitmap on the menu. In the small window that appears click on Colors (1), change the Scans setting to 30 (2) and tick the box for Remove background (3). You can click the Live preview (4) to see what the image will look like. Then click OK.

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Click X to close the Trace Bitmap window.

If you now use the Selection tool and click and drag on the image you should find that a version without the background moves with the cursor.

You can now click on the original image and press delete to remove it leaving you with just the new version without a background.

You can copy and pasteclipart once you have removed the background.

You can also use the Selection tool to resize it or rotate it.

And you can use the Lower and raise selection tools to place the image behind or in front of other objects or text.

17 – Copying Clipart

18 – Filters One of the features of Inkscape that is most fun and dramatic is the filters.

You can use it for both text and objects.

Using the Selection tool click on your text. Then in the menu bar click Filters, then Materials, then Cracked Lava. Straight away you should see your text transform.

You can spend a lot of time experimenting with different filter. Try one, and if you are not happy with it then simply click on the Undo icon in the menu bar to undo the filter you applied and then try another one.

There are many filters to choose from and some work better and are more dramatic than others, especially when using with text.

You can also use a filter on a filter. For example, you can use a filter such as Cracked Lava, then go back to filters and select Protrusions and then select Fire.

The best thing to do is play and experiment with all the filters.

It’s always a good idea to save your work every so often, just in case the computer decides to crash.

You can save your work in different types of format. What format you save it in depends on what you want to do with your image.

Saving your image as an SVG format will keep all of the objects as separate elements. This is good if you want to save your work with the intention of working on it again later, or if you need to change things later. However, many other programs that you might use to print your work might not like using that format.

So when saving your image to use in another program for printing we can save it in another format called PNG. It is of course perfectly fine to save your image in both formats and have two copies. That way you can always go back and make changes if it does not print ok.

To save your image click on File in the Menu Bar and then Save As. Choose the location where you wish to save your work first.

In the File Name box type a name for your work. It is a good idea to add SVG or PNG at the end so you can easily identify which one is which, for example: myfirstbannerSVG.

You then need to change the Save as type to the format you need, either Inkscape SVG (*.svg) or Cario PNG (*.png) in the drop down list.

Then click Save. Repeat and change the end of the filename and format in Save as type to save it the other format.

19 – Saving Your Work

20 – Printing If you created your image in the standard page format you can print directly from Inkscape to A4, and if your printer can handle it, A3.

If not you can always use a program such Microsoft Publisher to create a banner from multiple sheets.

Another way is to use a free program called PosterRazor. This program takes your image and creates a PDF with multiple pages that you then print. The pages have overlaps that allow you to stick them together to make larger posters or banners.

Below is a step by step guide on how to use it and you can download it from http://posterazor.sourceforge.net/

21 – PosterRazor - Step 1Open the program and click on the small yellow folder to open a file explorer window.

Locate your saved image. This is where you need to save your image as a PNG file format because it does not like the SVG format.

Once you have clicked OK your image should appear in the preview window along with details about size.

Click on Next for the next step.

22 – PosterRazor - Step 2In step 2 you choose the size of the paper you are going to print on.

This of course depends on your printer. Most printers will print on A4 sheets. If you can print straight to a photocopier then you might be lucky and be able to use A3. In the Format drop down box you can choose DIN A4 or DIN A3.

You can change the Orientation, but this depends on what best suits your image. Do not worry too much about this because you can always come back and change it.

23 – PosterRazor - Step 3Step 3 sets how the pages overlap.

You don’t really need to change the Overlapping position, but you might want to change the Overlapping size.

Especially for larger posters and banners you might want a larger overlap so that it does not come apart when carrying it. Simply click in the boxes and change the size.

Click Next for step 4.

24 – PosterRazor - Step 4In the preview window you can see how your image looks and how many pieces of paper it will use to create.

You can adjust the size of your image here either by Absolute size, Size in pages or Size in percentage. Also how it sits on the multiple pages with Image alignment. But seeing you set the size when you created the image you should not have to change it.

Remember than you can always use Back to return to step 2 and change the orientation of the paper if it helps.

25 – PosterRazor - Step 5Once you are happy with how things look then in step 5 click on the small grey square to open a file window and choose where to save your new PDF document.

Once it has finished it will open the PDF so you can view it and print it out.

All you have to do then is stick the pages together to make your banner or poster.

This program also works for images off the internet, such as photos or historical people.

What Next? The graphics, posters and banners you can create with this program is only limited by your imagination.

You can download some great free fonts from websites such as www.1001freefonts.com to use. Some of them based on famous films such as Jurassic Park and Star Wars, or themes such

as Christmas or Halloween.

Maybe have a go at making your own graphics using the line, circle and arc tools. Have a go at making a clock face and then create the hands so that you can move them.

You have nothing to lose by just having ago!