June 2009 - Inkscape Users - Inkscape Mailman

Script to slice inkscape (for web heads)
by m h 17 Sep '09

17 Sep '09

Hey all- I've written a script to slice from inkscape. Details/script can be found at my blog [0]. Comments/suggestions welcome. -matt 0 - http://panela.blog-city.com/slicing_web_pages_with_inkscape_and_python.htm

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Red Spiral Challenge
by Aaron Elmquist 04 Aug '09

04 Aug '09

Does anyone know how to creat the red spiral with the continuous gradient in Tavmjong Bah's "A Guide to Inkscape" I took a couple cracks at it last night without much sucess. ~Aaron

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Slow performance on 4.5 MB file
by Dave M G 22 Jul '09

22 Jul '09

Inkscape users, I have an Inkscape file that is about 4.5 megabytes in size. It is essentially an A4 size comic book page. One layer contains the orginal scanned pencils, which were in PNG format. The next layer are flat colours, no gradients, just simple paths with colour fills. The top layer is the inks, which were almost all created with the calligraphy pen. This seems to be where the problem is. Even just locking/unlocking the layer causes Inkscape to pause for many seconds, maybe 10 or so. My computer is by no means the latest, but it should handle these file sizes alright. I use GIMP and Photoshop on larger file sizes without any noticeable slowdown. (My computer is a 2.8GHz dual processor, with 2 GB RAM, running Ubuntu 9.04). Is it normal for a collection of paths created with the calligraphy pen to be this bulky and slow a system down? I tried removing the original scan images to try and reduce the file size, but it has not helped. Is there something I'm doing inefficiently or wrong, or is it just that complicated paths can't help but soak up lots of memory. Any advice would be much appreciated. -- Dave M G

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Large Blocks of Text
by frank gaude' 26 Jun '09

26 Jun '09

Using 0.47, 0.46-devel, and Ubuntu 9.04, x64, 4GB RAM, it seems that large blocks of text, more than say 500 characters, cannot have drop shadows. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong? frank

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spot color
by Terry Brown 21 Jun '09

21 Jun '09

Hi all, I've got a project set up in inkscape, designed for two color (green and black) spot color printing. First I'm going to send a PDF to the printing service and ask if it will work for them. But I'm guessing I may need to cut all the green stuff out of the black stuff for this to work, maybe provide two separate layers, one with the black shades, and one with the green shades. Does it sound likely that I'll need to do this, and if so are there any easy ways to do so, other than a lot of path differencing? And perhaps making the green shapes larger so there's no white where they're supposed to be contiguous with the black? Or is there some easy way around all this I'm overlooking? Thanks, Terry

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color print
by H.Lekin 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

Hi, I started using Inkscape 6 weeks ago. I went to a print shop to get a color drawing - exported as PNG - printed. On this print, a blue gradient fill turned into a blue to dirty-green fill. Do you have to transform color space afore? How do you usually do this? Convert PNG to TIF, transform RGB to CMYK with embedded profile? Make a PDF/X-3 via Scribus? If via SVG import, how do you handle tranparency? What standard color profile do you use, if you don't know exactly on which machine you are going to print? Or was this color shift just caused by a misconfiguration of Photoshop in the print shop? Thanks in advance for your help. HL

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Segmented circle by default in 0.47
by Steven M. Ottens 19 Jun '09

19 Jun '09

Hi all, I'm using the latest build of http://inkscape.modevia.com/win32/?M=D on windows XP. When I draw a circle it defaults to drawing a segmented circle; it draws a full circle, with the begin and end point on the same place and a line going from those points to the centre of the circle. I need to hit the 'make shape a full circle..' button to get rid of it. Does anyone else have the same problem, if so wouldn't it be better to default to a full circle? Regards, Steven

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Script to gather resources (fonts and images)
by Denís Fernández Cabrera 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hello all, I have just submitted this as a RFE in the Inkscape Launchpad section [1], but I thought I'd share here too in case someone comes with a quick fix -- perhaps a script that will do the job. The basic idea is, as I detail in the ticket: I have the fortune of working with a printing house that actually uses Inkscape (and Scribus and The GIMP) in they day-to-day. This means that they know the intrincacies of the program and I can send them pure SVGs with the reassurance they will know what they are doing. One of the problems I find, though, is that whenever I prepare a complex design (a poster, or even the layout of a page for simple books) where several font faces and external images are involved it is a real pain to gather all the resources (font files, image files) that I need to send them. Sure, Inkscape can embed images (but this generates huge SVG files and becomes aggravating when an image is used repeatedly in several files). It can also generate PDFs which I can send to them (but sometimes they need to do preprinting and there is no good PDF editor for GNU/Linux, and PDF doesn't support all the features SVG and Inkscape do). Hence I think that an option that parses the SVG file and generates a tarball with the SVG, its associated images and the relevant font faces would be very nice to have. Denís. [1] https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/386664 -- Denís Fernández Cabrera mailto://denis@...2650... Gatonegro deseño http://gatonegro.me

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Coordinates of a page
by Alessandro Antonello 18 Jun '09

18 Jun '09

Hi, all! Is it possible to invert the coordinate system of a page? I mean, the measurement of a page become at its lower-left corner. It's possible to change this to the up-left corner instead? Alessandro Antonello

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Inkscape 0.47pre0
by Ted Gould 17 Jun '09

17 Jun '09

I've made a pre-release to signify our increasingly frozen state. This image is more intended to help packagers to ensure that our tarballs are of good quality to make packages and to help users find bugs so that we release with as few as possible. This is not recommended for production work. === Tarballs and zips === https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=93438&package_id=991… === MD5 Sums === 7c794ec299573da3769dbcab1ff73182 inkscape-0.47pre0.tar.bz2 4ce7b7c349f5999ff4b233d952c132c7 inkscape-0.47pre0.tar.bz2.asc cd38689df58b7e37d17b69639fa4076b inkscape-0.47pre0.tar.gz d71511bc4684ff7204ec6c0c3dc789c4 inkscape-0.47pre0.tar.gz.asc 71cb667999b1cabac197c951a52e8219 inkscape-0.47pre0.zip ae6d202080e22334b3188f10814ed328 inkscape-0.47pre0.zip.asc I think that's it. Thanks from everyone for putting work into this. A very exciting release is starting to take shape. --Ted

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hola, gracias por aceptarme / hi, thanks for accepting
by Andrés Rodríguez 11 Jun '09

11 Jun '09

hola, soy un usuario colombiano que estoy comenzando a descubrir el mundo del software libre, inkscape me parece genial, pero solo lo he podido utilizar en virtual box por que tengo el siguiente problema: he instalado inkscape con privilegios de administrador me parecio muy buena esta forma de instalacion pero ahora que esta instalado sobre linux ubuntu no se como abrirlo o ejecutarlo utilice alt + f2 y escribi inkscape, y no aparece nada ¿Como puedo abrir el software? Hi, I'm a user Colombian starting to discover the world of free software Inkscape seems good but I could just use virtual box that I have the following problem: Inkscape I installed with Administrator privileges I felt very good this way of installation but now that is installed on ubuntu linux not open or run as use alt + f2 and write Inkscape, and nothing appears How do I open the software? -- Andrés Rodríguez V. Estudiante Tec. Industrial Recomiendo el uso de programas alternativos a Word, Excel, PowerPoin, etc. por favor trate de no trabajar o enviar archivos adjuntos en estos formatos estas son las razones: http://andresuncio.blogspot.com/ http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.es.html

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Copy between documents only copy as bitmap? (21461 in OS X)
by Jmx 10 Jun '09

10 Jun '09

Hi, I just noticed that i can't copy items between documents in the latest build for OS X (21461 and 21420) Copied vector objects turn up as bitmaps with a white background. It copies fine in the old 0.46 though Thought someone would like to know :) -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Copy-between-documents-only-copy-as-bitmap--%2821461-… Sent from the Inkscape - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Remove all guides
by Lars Behrens 10 Jun '09

10 Jun '09

Hi there, sometimes I find myself locked in a world of guides :-) I can't find a quick way to remove all guides in drawing (Inkscape 0.46). Can someone help me? TIA! Lars

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Blur in EPS output
by Peter Desjardins 09 Jun '09

09 Jun '09

I have established a pattern of using blurred drop shadow in the diagrams I produce for technical manuals. I've used Adobe Illustrator in the past and I am attempting to switch to Inkscape. I find that Inkscape does not save EPS files with that blurred drop shadow. The only reason I am saving my Inkscape diagram as EPS is that my publishing tool (RenderX XEP) doesn't seem to support the blurred drop shadow in SVG either. I ran a simple test in which I created an SVG Inkscape diagram with the blurred drop shadow. It looks perfect in Firefox. Then I saved it as EPS. I opened the SVG diagram with Illustrator, saved as the Illustrator format, and then saved the Illustrator diagram as EPS. So I have two EPS files that should contain the same diagram. http://sites.google.com/site/filessharedbypeter/Home/graphic-test-inkscape.… http://sites.google.com/site/filessharedbypeter/Home/graphic-test-inkscape-… I placed both diagrams in a document and published it to PDF. The Inkscape EPS file does not blur the shadow. The Illustrator EPS file does blur the shadow. Here's the PDF. http://sites.google.com/site/filessharedbypeter/Home/graphic-test.pdf My environment is Windows XP and Inkscape 0.46. My copy of Illustrator is CS2. I publish PDF documents using DocBook XML, RenderX XEP 4.15, and GPL Ghostscript 8.62. Is there a way to get Inkscape to save the blur in the shadow in EPS? Here's the original SVG for my test. http://sites.google.com/site/filessharedbypeter/Home/graphic-test-inkscape.… Thanks for your help. Peter Desjardins

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Re: [Inkscape-user] hola, gracias por aceptarme / hi, thanks for accepting
by Guillermo Espertino 09 Jun '09

09 Jun '09

Andrés: abre la terminal y ejecuta inkscape sin sudo. Probablemente te informe de alguna dependencia que te pueda estar faltando y por eso se cierra. La dependencia que falte la puedes buscar con synaptic, y una vez instalada ya no te dará problemas. Saludos! Gez.

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Re: [Inkscape-user] spot colour
by Mathew Oakes 06 Jun '09

06 Jun '09

HI Jon, I agree that littleCMS does matter, I just meant for the purpose of outputting separations. Thanks for your insightful links, as usual I am totally impressed with the work of Inkscape community and your input here is clearly very important. The concept of common swatch library format across different programs is really fantastic, and the kind of co-operation that is needed to provide viable alternatives to adobe creative suite. Sorry if my tone was too strong, but I have many reasons to prefer working in inkscape, and this particular point is a terrible difficulty in terms of being able to use my artwork over the full range of media. I'll be looking into your workaround mentioned when I have time! cheers Mat > > > > LittleCMS doesn't matter particularly as the answer to the original > > question from Terry Brown. Printing as SPOT colour, means output > > separations for named colours individually, not mixed as CMYK, RGB, > > LAB or anything else. > > LittleCMS actually does matter. > > It gives support for *previewing* output results, for detecting out > of gamut colors, and even for using named color icc profiles. The > latter is probably the primary way to reliably and portably denote > spot colors, but SVG hasn't integrated direct use of them yet. > > A functional work-around would be to have an icc profile with a > single number input, and that does an effective index into a set of > spot colors. A bit strange, but should work with Inkscape 0.46 as it > was released.

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Re: [Inkscape-user] spot colour
by Mathew Oakes 06 Jun '09

06 Jun '09

The discussion around spot colour largely misses the point as I see it. As a professional graphic artist I think its an important thing to have clearly understood. Colour support has become my #1 problem with using inkscape at work. Well, that mixed with the fact of the difficulty of getting editable artwork to work the same in illustrator (just for setting up separations for output). LittleCMS doesn't matter particularly as the answer to the original question from Terry Brown. Printing as SPOT colour, means output separations for named colours individually, not mixed as CMYK, RGB, LAB or anything else. Example: - Pantone 872C is a gold metallic ink (can't be accurately mixed in other systems). - On spot colour output you want a separation of solid black ink (to make the printing plate), labelled Pantone 872 (for the ink that is applied). - To approximate it on screen you want specific RGB values - To approximate it web-safe you need some other RGB values - To approximate it on desktop printer you need some CMYK values Nasty workaround: ============= I started doing graphics in the beginning of the desktop publishing almost 20 years ago, and there was time like 90-91 where you had to abuse the CMYK separations to get spot separations out of illustrator and freehand: - re-color your artwork before sending to the printer, - so 'Pantone 872C' became cyan (for instance), and - make sure the printer had clear instructions replacing cyan with Pantone 872C Changing applied colours like that in inkscape is laborious for complex artwork. Its probably less work than the suggestion in this thread of setting up layers for the various colours, exporting them individually and manually aligining the separations later in other programs. The problem? ========== I think the reason this is not addressed in inkscape, is the way that colors are stored and used. We can use a palette to apply a color. Later we cannot change the palette - and even if we could, it wouldn't change all instances where that colour is applied. The established solution: ================== Illustrator has an additional concept of swatches - where the colour properties of objects are linked to a swatch object. Swatches can be changed, changing all objects/lines/fills/gradientstops that reference them. This is extremely useful in complex illustrations where you might have several colours that mean things, but need to adjust them later in the process. A spot colour needs to be defined like a swatch, so that the one definition can be used identically across many different objects, and later used as a separation. That also allows artwork to move between colour spaces, as each swatch can have a representation defined in each colour space. That is the real value that the downloadable profiles and swatch libraries provide -- the ability to match output from different devices eg. screen (RGB), web-safe (RGB), inkjet (CMYK),web offset lithography (CMYK with colour profile) and spot colour reproduction.

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Re: [Inkscape-user] SVG Font Editor
by quetim porta 04 Jun '09

04 Jun '09

Hi Olivier. I have been playing a little with the Beta. I believe that the problem is apparently solved. I made the following: I recorded my live playing in Harmony and route the output to Samplitude music studio. So, i recorded in Harmony and the midi output at same time. I exported the Harmony recording and merged them in a same midi file. If you open it in a Piano-roll, you can see some differences. I transpose the samplitude record one step down. So, the note above is the harmony record, and the one down, is the samplitude one. There are some timing differences, but what catch my attention was the velocity differences. The midi file Harmony export has very high values compared with the real input. Hope i expressed myself clear enough. Any question is welcome. Best Regards. --- On Tue, 5/19/09, Alvin Penner <penner@...2467...> wrote: From: Alvin Penner <penner@...2467...> Subject: Re: [Inkscape-user] SVG Font Editor To: inkscape-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net Date: Tuesday, May 19, 2009, 12:25 AM bulia byak wrote: > > Thanks Felipe, I added this to release notes: > thanks for the documentation, this should certainly whet peoples' appetites. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/SVG-Font-Editor-tp23574059p23606454.html Sent from the Inkscape - User mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Reports - New Free Runtime and 30 Day Trial Check out the new simplified licensing option that enables unlimited royalty-free distribution of the report engine for externally facing server and web deployment. http://p.sf.net/sfu/businessobjects _______________________________________________ Inkscape-user mailing list Inkscape-user(a)lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/inkscape-user

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Re: [Inkscape-user] color print
by Guillermo Espertino 01 Jun '09

01 Jun '09

I do a lot of print in my design studio using Inkscape and free software. If I need to send the whole image as a single tiff to the print shop, I do the following: - Export the Inkscape artwork as 300 dpi PNG. - Open in GIMP and use the separate+ plugin using the desired profile - Save as CMYK tiff from the separate+ menu. - Send to print shop as tiff, or embed the cmyk tiff in a PDF using Scribus. The profiles I use depend on the print shop where I'll send the artwork to. I use adobe profiles (euroscale coated v2, for instance) if I don't know what profile my printshop uses. People from USA might want to use swop instead. If the printer provides a profile, then I use that. Since almost everybody uses adobe software and it's quite common that they don't use custom rgb profiles, I use AdobeRGB for my RGB profile. I've never had important problems so far. Gez.

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Calligraphic pens and paths
by Benct Philip Jonsson 01 Jun '09

01 Jun '09

Is there any hope that Inkscape will ever allow to apply calligraphic pens to paths the way Illustrator does? Is it hard to implement? Are the Adobe guys sitting on some patent there? Is it only I who want it? It would create a dedicated Linux user as it would remove my last incentive to ever use Windows... /BP 8^)> -- Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch atte melroch dotte se ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "C'est en vain que nos Josués littéraires crient à la langue de s'arrêter; les langues ni le soleil ne s'arrêtent plus. Le jour où elles se *fixent*, c'est qu'elles meurent." (Victor Hugo)

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10 awesome inkscape tutorials.
by ryan lerch 01 Jun '09

01 Jun '09

Hi all, I case you haven't seen it yet, the inkscape tutorials blog recently posted a top 10 tutorials list. be sure to check it out! http://inkscapetutorials.wordpress.com/2009/05/31/10-of-the-best-inkscape-t… cheers, ryanlerch

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