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Inkscape tutorial:

Avanzado

Este tutorial cubre los siguientes

temas: copiar/pegar, edición de
nodos, dibujo de curvas bezier y a
mano alzada, manipulación de rutas,
booleanos, desvio, simplificación y
herramienta texto.

Use Ctrl + arrows , mouse

wheel, or middle button
drag to scroll the page down. For
basics of object creation, selection,
and transformation, see the Basic
tutorial in HELP ⇒ TUTORIALS.

Técnicas de pegado
After you copy some object(s) by Ctrl + C or
cut by Ctrl + X , the regular PASTE command (
Ctrl + V ) pastes the copied object(s) right
under the mouse cursor or, if the cursor is
outside the window, to the center of the
document window. However, the object(s) in
the clipboard still remember the original place
from which they were copied, and you can
paste back there by PASTE IN PLACE ( Ctrl +
Alt + V ).

Another command, PASTE STYLE ( Shift + Ctrl

+ V ), applies the style of the (first) object on
the clipboard to the current selection. The
“style” thus pasted includes all the fill, stroke,
and font settings, but not the shape, size, or
parameters specific to a shape type, such as the
number of tips of a star.

Yet another set of paste commands, available

from EDIT ⇒ PASTE..., scales the selection to
match the desired size attribute of the
clipboard object(s). There are a number of
commands for pasting size and are as follows:
Size, Width, Height, Size Separately, Width
Separately, and Height Separately.

EDIT ⇒ PASTE… ⇒ SIZE scales the whole selection

to match the overall size of the clipboard

object(s). WIDTH/HEIGHT scale the whole selection
horizontally/vertically so that it matches the
width/height of the clipboard object(s). These
commands honor the scale ratio lock on the
Selector Tool controls bar (between W and H
fields), so that when that lock is pressed, the
other dimension of the selected object is scaled
in the same proportion; otherwise the other
dimension is unchanged. The commands
containing “Separately” work similarly to the
above described commands, except that they
scale each selected object separately to make it
match the size/width/height of the clipboard
object(s).

Clipboard is system-wide - you can copy/paste

objects between different Inkscape instances
as well as between Inkscape and other
applications (which must be able to handle SVG
on the clipboard to use this).

Dibujando a mano alzada y trazos

regulares
The easiest way to create an arbitrary shape is
to draw it using the Pencil (freehand) tool ( P ):

If you want more regular shapes, use the Pen

(Bezier) tool ( B ):

With the Pen tool, each click creates a

sharp node without any curve handles, so a
series of clicks produces a sequence of straight
line segments. click and drag creates
a smooth Bezier node with two collinear
opposite handles. Press Shift while
dragging out a handle to rotate only one
handle and fix the other. As usual, Ctrl limits
the direction of either the current line segment
or the Bezier handles to 15 degree increments.
Pressing Enter finalizes the line, Esc
cancels it. To cancel only the last segment of an
unfinished line, press Backspace .

En ambas herramientas, el trazo actualmente

seleccionado muestra una pequeña ancla
cuadrada en ambos finales. Estas anclas le
permiten continuar este trazo (mediante
arrastrado desde uno de las anclas) o cierrelo
(mediante arrastrado de una ancla a la otra) en
vez de crear una nueva.

Editando trazos
Unlike shapes created by shape tools, the Pen
and Pencil tools create what is called paths. A
path is a sequence of straight line segments
and/or Bezier curves which, as any other
Inkscape object, may have arbitrary fill and
stroke properties. But unlike a shape, a path
can be edited by freely dragging any of its
nodes (not just predefined handles) or by
directly dragging a segment of the path. Select
this path and switch to the Node tool ( N ):

You will see a number of gray square nodes on

the path. These nodes can be selected by
click, Shift + click, or by
dragging a rubberband - exactly like objects
are selected by the Selector tool (including the
very similar way to use the Alt key to draw
around the nodes you want to select). You can
also click a path segment to automatically
select the adjacent nodes. Selected nodes
become highlighted and show their node
handles - one or two small circles connected to
each selected node by straight lines. The ! key
inverts node selection in the current subpath(s)
(i.e. subpaths with at least one selected node);
Alt + ! inverts in the entire path.

Paths are edited by dragging their nodes,

node handles, or directly dragging a path
segment. (Try to drag some nodes, handles, and
path segments of the above path.) Ctrl
works as usual to restrict movement and
rotation. The arrow keys, Tab , [ , ] , < ,
> keys with their modifiers all work just as
they do in selector, but apply to nodes instead
of objects. You can add nodes anywhere on a
path by either double clicking or by Ctrl +
Alt + click at the desired location.

You can delete nodes with Del or Ctrl +

Alt + click. When deleting nodes,
Inkscape will in most cases try to retain the
shape of the path. Only on sharp corners, it will
instead create a straight line. If you want it to
always try to preserve the shape, you can use
Ctrl + Del . Additionally, you can duplicate (
Shift + D ) selected nodes. The path can be
broken ( Shift + B ) at the selected nodes, or
if you select two endnodes on one path, you
can join them ( Shift + J ).

A node can be made cusp ( Shift + C ), which

means its two handles can move independently
at any angle to each other; smooth ( Shift +
S ), which means its handles are always on the
same straight line (collinear); symmetric (
Shift + Y ), which is the same as smooth,
but the handles also have the same length; and
auto-smooth ( Shift + A ), a special node that
automatically adjusts the handles of the node
and surrounding auto-smooth nodes to
maintain a smooth curve. When you switch the
type of node, you can preserve the position of
one of the two handles by hovering your
mouse over it, so that only the other handle is
rotated/scaled to match.

Also, you can retract a node's handle

altogether by Ctrl + clicking on it. If
two adjacent nodes have their handles
retracted, the path segment between them is a
straight line. To pull out the retracted node,
Shift + drag away from the node.

Subtrazos y combinación
Un objeto trazo puede contener más de un
subtrazo. Un subtrazo es una secuencia de
nodos concetados entre si. (Por lo tanto, si un
trazo tiene más de un subtrazo no todos los
nodos están conectados.) Abajo a la izquierda,
tres subtrazos pertenecen a un trazo simple
compuesto; los mismos tres subtrazos den la
derecha son objetos de trazo independientes:

Note que un trazo compuesto no es lo mismo

que un grupo. Es un objeto sencillo el cual es
sólo seleccionable como uno entero. Si usted
selecciona el objeto de la izquierda a
continuación y tome la herramienta nodo,
podrá observar los nodos mostrados en los tres
subtrazos. En la derecha, puede solo editar-
nodos sobre un solo trazo a la vez.

Inkscape can COMBINE paths into a compound

path ( Ctrl + K ) and BREAK APART a compound
path into separate paths ( Ctrl + Shift + K
). Parts of a path (i.e. a selection of nodes) can
also be copied with Ctrl + C and inserted as
a new subpath (into the same path or a
different one) with Ctrl + V . Try these
commands on the above examples. Since an
object can only have one fill and stroke, a new
compound path gets the style of the first
(lowest in z-order) object being combined.

When you combine or paste overlapping paths

with fill, usually the fill will disappear in the
areas where the paths overlap:

Este es el modo más sencillo para crear objetos

con agujeros en el. Para comandos de trazo
más poderosos, observe "Operaciones
Booleanas" más adelante.

Convirtiendo a trazo
Any shape or text object can be converted to
path ( Shift + Ctrl + C ). This operation
does not change the appearance of the object
but removes all capabilities specific to its type
(e.g. you can't round the corners of a rectangle
or edit the text anymore); instead, you can now
edit its nodes. Here are two stars - the left one
is kept a shape and the right one is converted
to path. Switch to node tool and compare their
editability when selected:

Moreover, you can convert to a path (“outline”)

the stroke of any object. Below, the first object
is the original path (no fill, black stroke), while
the second one is the result of the STROKE TO PATH

command (black fill, no stroke):

Operaciones booleanas
The commands in the PATH menu let you
combine two or more objects using boolean
operations:

Original shapes

Union Difference (Ctrl+-) Intersection

(Ctrl++) (bottom minus top) (Ctrl+*)

Exclusion Division Cut Path

(Ctrl+^) (Ctrl+/) (Ctrl+Alt+/)

The keyboard shortcuts for these commands

allude to the arithmetic analogs of the boolean
operations (union is addition, difference is
subtraction, etc.). The DIFFERENCE and EXCLUSION
commands can only apply to two selected
objects; others may process any number of
objects at once. The result always receives the
style of the bottom object.

The result of the EXCLUSION command looks

similar to COMBINE (see above), but it is different
in that EXCLUSION adds extra nodes where the
original paths intersect. The difference
between DIVISION and CUT PATH is that the former
cuts the entire bottom object by the path of the
top object, while the latter only cuts the
bottom object's stroke and removes any fill
(this is convenient for cutting fill-less strokes
into pieces).

For some common use cases, the PATH menu also

contains a few commands that combine
multiple basic Boolean operations into one, to
save you some time – and on top, they also keep
the color and style of the objects, unlike the
basic operations: SPLIT PATH splits a path into a
set of non-overlapping sections (so a text-like
path would be split into letters), FRACTURE
fractures a set of overlapping paths along
every line in any path, and FLATTEN will remove
every part of each overlapping path that is not
visible, because it is covered by another path in
the selection.

Shape Builder tool

For building up new shapes from multiple
paths by using the mouse only, the Shape
Builder tool ( X ) can be used.

Before you switch to the tool, select some

overlapping objects. After you switch to the
tool, the canvas will only show the outlines of
the objects that you have selected. Now, the
Shape Builder tool can be used to choose which
sections to keep and which to discard.

Click to add a section to the result, or

Shift + click to remove it to create a
hole in its place. click + drag to
connect multiple sections to one, or Shift +
click + drag to remove a contiguous
section.

Finally, you can accept or discard the result

using one of the buttons in the tool controls
bar.

Reducir y ampliar
Inkscape can expand and contract shapes not
only by scaling, but also by offsetting an
object's path, i.e. by displacing it perpendicular
to the path in each point. The corresponding
commands are called INSET ( Ctrl + ( ) and
OUTSET ( Ctrl + ) ). Shown below is the original
path (red) and a number of paths inset or
outset from that original:

The plain INSET and OUTSET commands produce

paths (converting the original object to path if
it's not a path yet). Often, more convenient is
the DYNAMIC OFFSET ( Ctrl + J ) which creates an
object with a draggable handle (similar to a
shape's handle) controlling the offset distance.
Select the object below, switch to the node
tool, and drag its handle to get an idea:

Como un objeto desviado dinámicamente

recuerda el trazo original, este no "degrada"
cuando usted cambia la distancia de desviado
una y otra vez. Cuando usted no lo requiere
ajustar más, siempre puede volver a convertir
un objeto desviado a trazo.

Aún más conveniente es el Desvío Enlazado, el

cual es similar a la variedad dinámica pero es
conectado a otro trazo el cual se mantiene
editable. Usted puede tener cualquier número
de desvíos enlazadas para un trazo fuente.
Adelante, el trazo fuente es rojo, un desvío
enlazado a este tiene borde negro y no posee
relleno, el otro posee relleno negro y no tiene
borde.

Select the red object and node-edit it; watch

how both linked offsets respond. Now select
any of the offsets and drag its handle to adjust
the offset radius. Finally, notehow you can
move or transform the offset objects
independently without losing their connection
with the source.

Simplificación
The main use of the SIMPLIFY command ( Ctrl +
L ) is reducing the number of nodes on a path
while almost preserving its shape. This may be
useful for paths created by the Pencil tool,
since that tool sometimes creates more nodes
than necessary. Below, the left shape is as
created by the freehand tool, and the right one
is a copy that was simplified. The original path
has 28 nodes, while the simplified one has 17
(which means it is much easier to work with in
node tool) and is smoother.

The amount of simplification (called the

threshold) depends on the size of the selection.
Therefore, if you select a path along with some
larger object, it will be simplified more
aggressively than if you select that path alone.
Moreover, the SIMPLIFY command is accelerated.
This means that if you press Ctrl + L several
times in quick succession (so that the calls are
within 0.5 sec from each other), the threshold is
increased on each call. (If you do another
Simplify after a pause, the threshold is back to
its default value.) By making use of the
acceleration, it is easy to apply the exact
amount of simplification you need for each
case.

Besides smoothing freehand strokes, SIMPLIFY

can be used for various creative effects. Often,
a shape which is rigid and geometric benefits
from some amount of simplification that
creates cool life-like generalizations of the
original form - melting sharp corners and
introducing very natural distortions,
sometimes stylish and sometimes plain funny.
Here's an example of a clipart shape that looks
much nicer after SIMPLIFY:

Original Slight simplification Aggressive simplification

Creando texto
Inkscape es capaz de crear textos largos y
complejos. Sin embargo, esto el algo muy
conveniente para la creación de textos
pequeños como cabeceras, banners, logos,
etiquetas de diagramas y captura, etc. Esta
sección es una introducción muy básica acerca
de las capacidades de texto de Inkscape.

Creating a text object is as simple as switching

to the Text tool ( T ), clicking somewhere in the
document, and typing your text. To change font
family, style, size, and alignment, open the Text
and Font dialog ( Shift + Ctrl + T ). That
dialog also has a text entry tab where you can
edit the selected text object - in some
situations, it may be more convenient than
editing it right on the canvas (in particular, that
tab supports as-you-type spell checking).

Like other tools, Text tool can select objects of

its own type - text objects -so you can click to
select and position the cursor in any existing
text object (such as this paragraph).

One of the most common operations in text

design is adjusting spacing between letters and
lines. As always, Inkscape provides keyboard
shortcuts for this. When you are editing text,
the Alt + < and Alt + > keys change the
letter spacing in the current line of a text object,
so that the total length of the line changes by 1
pixel at the current zoom (compare to Selector
tool where the same keys do pixel-sized object
scaling). As a rule, if the font size in a text
object is larger than the default, it will likely
benefit from squeezing letters a bit tighter
than the default. Here's an example:

Inspiration
Original

Inspiration
Letter spacing decreased

Las variantes de ajustados parecen un poco

mejor que un encabezado, pero aún no es
perfecto: las distancias entre letras no son
uniformes, por ejemplo la "a" y la "t" están muy
separadas mientra que la "t" y la "i" están muy
cerca. El monto de de dicho kern erroneo
(especialmente visible en tamaños de fuente
grandes) es mayor en fuentes de baja calidad
que en las otras de buena calidad; sin embargo,
en cualquier cadena de texto y en cualquier
fuente probablemente buscará un par de letras
que puedan beneficiar el ajuste del espaceado.

Inkscape makes these adjustments really easy.

Just move your text editing cursor between the
offending characters and use Alt + arrows
to move the letters right of the cursor. Here is
the same heading again, this time with manual
adjustments for visually uniform letter
positioning:

Inspiration
Letter spacing decreased, some letter pairs manually kerned

In addition to shifting letters horizontally by

Alt + Left or Alt + Right , you can also
move them vertically by using Alt + Up or
Alt + Down :

Inspiration
Of course you could just convert your text to
path ( Shift + Ctrl + C ) and move the
letters as regular path objects. However, it is
much more convenient to keep text as text - it
remains editable, you can try different fonts
without removing the kerns and spacing, and it
takes much less space in the saved file. The only
disadvantage to the “text as text” approach is
that you need to have the original font
installed on any system where you want to
open that SVG document.

Similar to letter spacing, you can also adjust

line spacing in multi-line text objects. Try the
Ctrl + Alt + < and Ctrl + Alt + > keys
on any paragraph in this tutorial to space it in
or out so that the overall height of the text
object changes by 1 pixel at the current zoom.
As in Selector, pressing Shift with any
spacing or kerning shortcut produces 10 times
greater effect than without Shift.

Inkscape can also create flowed texts: simply

click and drag with the text tool to draw a text
box for your text to flow in. To control the flow,
use the alignment button in the tool controls
bar.

Lastly, there is a third type of text in Inkscape:

the column-type text. This text's width can be
set, while the height is not limited. You can turn
any normal, non-flowed text (the one that is
created by only clicking) into a fixed-width text
by dragging the handle opposite the text
anchor.

Editor XML
The ultimate power tool of Inkscape is the XML
editor ( Shift + Ctrl + X ). It displays the
entire XML tree of the document, always
reflecting its current state. You can edit your
drawing and watch the corresponding changes
in the XML tree. Moreover, you can edit any
text, element, or attribute nodes in the XML
editor and see the result on your canvas. This is
the best tool imaginable for learning SVG
interactively, and it allows you to do tricks that
would be impossible with regular editing tools.

Conclusión
This tutorial shows only a small part of all
capabilities of Inkscape. We hope you enjoyed
it. Don't be afraid to experiment and share
what you create. Please visit inkscape.org for
more information, latest versions, and help
from user and developer communities.

Authors: Bulia Byak; Jonathan Leighton; Josh

Andler; Colin Marquardt; Nicolas
Dufour; Gellért Gyuris; Maren Hachmann
Translators: GLUD-ACL (Grupo Linux
universidad Distrital - Academia y
Conocimiento Libre) — 2005; Jeffrey Steve
Borbón Sanabria — 2005
Header / footer design: Esteban Capella — 2019

Inkscape is Free and Open Source Software

licensed under the GPL.

Documents Team Language: 'en'