Inkscape

Abstract

Inkscape, Guide to a Vector Drawing Program is the guide to the Inkscape program. The web-based version is linked directly under the program's Help menu. This book is both an introduction and reference for the Inkscape drawing program. With Inkscape, one can produce a wide variety of art, from photo-realistic drawings to organizational charts. Inkscape uses SVG, a powerful vector-based drawing language and W3C web standard, as its native format. SVG drawings can be directly viewed by web browsers such as Firefox and Opera. A subset of SVG has been adopted by the mobile phone market. Inkscape is available free for Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Solaris operating systems. The first third of the book is devoted to eight tutorials that progress in difficulty from very basic to very complex (three additional tutorials were written explicitly for the PDF version). The remainder of the book covers each facet of Inkscape in detail. Updated for Inkscape v0.47, the book includes complete coverage of new features including: updated Pen and Pencil tools with new spiro, polyline, and sketch modes; new Eraser tool; and the new Snapping toolbar with improved snapping. Advance topics covered include the use of Inkscape's powerful tiling tool, built-in bitmap tracing, and SVG use on the Web. The book includes plenty of tips (and warnings) about the use of Inkscape and SVG.