A Guide to Inkscape/Other Tools

Selection tool Inkscape icons tool pointer.svg
Keyboard shortcuts: S or F1 or Spacebar This tool allows you to select objects, resize them and move them about. If you click twice on an object with the selection tool, the handles change and you are able to rotate an object. Click a third time to switch to the object's tool.



Node tool
Keyboard shortcuts: N or F2

Zoom tool Inkscape icons sticky zoom.svg
Keyboard Shortcuts: Q Quick Zoom, Z or F3 Drag the tool over a given area to zoom in. Shift+Left click to zoom out again. You can zoom in and out with the + and - keys, respectively.

Other shortcuts to zoom in are: Shortcuts to zoom out are:
 * Ctrl+Middle click
 * Ctrl+Right click
 * Ctrl+Middle click
 * Ctrl+Right click

Inkscape keeps a history of your zoom levels. For a 'Previous' zoom level, use `; for the 'Next' zoom level, use Shift.

Text tool Inkscape icons draw text.svg
Keyboard Shortcuts: T or F8 Click and Drag an area where you want your text to go, then start typing! If the letters are too small, open on the Select tool F1, then drag the handles to make it bigger. There are a lot of things that you can do with text that are beyond the scope of this beginners tutorial.

Gradient tool Inkscape icons color gradient.svg
Keyboard Shortcut: G or Ctrl Click the Gradient tool button in the Inkscape tool bar, then Click on an object and you will create a gradient from a fully opaque colour to full transparency. The gradient tool can be used to edit an existing gradient, adjust colour stops by dragging and placing the gradient handles that appear over an object when the tool is active.

The Gradient tools Control bar (3rd bar from the top of the Inkscape GUI) is how to select the following beginner edits:
 * Linear gradient
 * Radial gradient
 * Apply gradient to fill
 * Apply gradient to stroke
 * Select edit to preset gradients

Color Picker tool Inkscape icons color picker.svg
Keyboard Shortcuts: D or F7 The Color Picker, or "eyedropper" tool can be used to sample any colour in the Inkscape canvas. One of the key reasons for this tool's use is to enable the picking of colors from an image. First import Ctrl the image into Inkscape and then use this tool to pick a colour setting from the image to the selected object, beginner options listed:
 * Click to set fill
 * Shift to set stroke
 * Drag to set average color of area
 * Alt Click to pick inverse color

Connector tool Inkscape icons draw connector.svg
Keyboard Shortcut: O Use this to draw a connection between two objects. For example, a drawing and a label.



The nice thing about using this tool is that if you decide to move the objects about on the canvas, the connector still maintains the connection. As of v0.91, once the connector is created and rendered onto the canvas, if you drag only the path it will 'disconnect' itself from the objects it was attached to.