John,

I use Inkscape to produce drawings for use with the Silhouette cutter for making model railway carriages and buildings. You are unlikely to be particularly interested in this use, but there is an excellent tutorial on the various features of Inkscape as used for this purpose at http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/80563-introduction-to-usin...

Mick Ralph

Message: 6 Date: Tue, 8 Mar 2016 15:00:02 +0000 From: John Sampson <jrs.idx@...3210...> Subject: [Inkscape-user] Making "Fill and Stroke" work [Was: Object outline] To: inkscape-user@lists.sourceforge.net Message-ID: <56DEE8F2.1070705@...3210...> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed

Hello -

I do not want to separate the lines I described. What I want is to draw a rectangle.

I think I have found the solution - At the bottom of "Edit" menu there is "Preferences" (? moved from the "File" menu since earlier versions) . Under "Tools" there is "Shapes" and under this, "Rectangle". Radio buttons under "Style of new objects" are "Last used style" and "This tool's own style". The default value is the former. I changed this to the latter, and found that Fill and Stroke now actually work.

I suppose when one starts Inkscape with a new document, "Last used style" will be nil, so logically nothing should happen when one tries to draw a shape. I have never seen this reasoning applied in software before.

This was my last throw before deciding to uninstall Inkscape.

Regards

John Sampson