The Hide/Show submenu can be used to toggle on and off various parts of the graphical user interface, including the Palette. Shift+F11 hides/shows all parts of the graphical user interface, including the main menu bar.

Inkscape dialogs can be hidden and unhidden with the View → Show/Hide Dialogs ( F12 ) command.

Inkscape has an Outline or Wire-frame mode. In this mode, all paths and shapes are drawn as outlines with a one screen-pixel-wide stroke and no fill, regardless of zoom level. Text is drawn with an inverse fill and no stroke. Images are outlined in red, clip paths in green, and masks in blue.

The Outline mode is useful for seeing the overall structure of a drawing, precise node editing, and for finding and selecting those pesky, hidden objects that may have been created by accident. The mode is marginally faster than the normal mode. It can be turned on via View → DisplayMode → Outline, turned off by View → DisplayMode → Normal, and toggled via View → DisplayMode → Toggle ( Ctrl+Keypad 5 ).

The same drawing shown in the normal view on the left and the wire-frame view on the right (the text has been converted to a path).

The colors used by the Outline mode can be changed by editing the wireframecolors group in the preferences file (Linux: ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml for v0.47, ~/.inkscape/preferences.xml for v0.46). Inkscape can be forced to start up in Outline mode by adding <group id="startmode" outline="1"/> to the preferences file inside the options group.

Inkscape also has an No Filters mode where the rendering of Filters is turned off. This is useful for working on complicated drawings where the use of Filters causes the rendering to be too slow. It can be selected via View → DisplayMode → No Filters, turned off by View → DisplayMode → Normal, and toggled on/off via View → DisplayMode → Toggle ( Ctrl+Keypad 5 ).

The Inkscape window can be made to cover the full screen with the View → Full Screen ( F11 ) command. A second use of the same command returns the window to its original size and position.

Each new drawing is created in a separate window. To move between these windows, you can use the method provided by your operating system (try Alt+Tab) or the methods provided by Inkscape View → Next Window ( Ctrl+Tab ) and View → Previous Window ( Shift+Ctrl+Tab ).

A duplicate Inkscape window can be created with the View → Duplicate Window command. Both the original and new window refer to the same drawing. Thus, one can use one window for detailed work while keeping watch over how the work affects a larger region of a drawing.

Updated for v0.48.

An Icon Preview window can be created with the View → Icon Preview command. This allows one to see what a drawing (or selection) will look like as icons of different sizes. In v0.47 one needs to click on the Refresh button to update the previews. In v0.48 the update is automatic. One can choose between viewing the whole drawing or a selected object by clicking the Selection button in v0.47 or by checking the Selection box in v0.48. In v0.48, by default, the previews are “locked” to the initial selected object's region. To change the region, uncheck and recheck the Selection box while a different object is selected.

Which sizes are displayed can be specified in the preferences file (Linux: ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml) under the iconpreview group. In v0.48, you can also toggle on/off the automatic refresh of the previews, change the arrangement of the icons from compact to stacked (as in v0.47), change the previews to not follow the selected object, or to remove the frame around the icon previews.

A preview of the Inkscape Bezier icon with the Icon Preview dialog.