Drawing with Inkscape

Inkscape is a high performance open source tool for vector graphics. It can be freely downloaded on internet (site inkscape.org).

Introduction

Once Inkscape is downloaded and installed on your computer, it is natural to begin to create a new simple document. For that, after running Inkscape and before drawing, you can begin to define:
1) The properties of your document (size, grid, border);
2) Your working preferences with Inkscape (and notably the setting used for the tools).

Define the properties of the document

Let us suppose that you want :
- To create a new drawing having a dimension of 300x200 pixels;
- To do appear the borders of this drawing;
- Not to dispose of a grid, in back plan (usualy the grid is used to facilitate the tracing).

Begin by clicking the menu option "File/Document properties".

In the dialog box which opens , click the tab menu "Page" and type the width and the height values of your document (300 and 200 pixels in our example).

For a document delimited by a simple border of black color, click the checkbox "Show page border" then click the button "Border color" and choose the black color.

If you want the document appears on the screen with his real size, dones so that the zoom button downstairs on the right of the screen indicates 100%.

If you don't want a grid appears in transparence behind the document, click the tab menu "Grid/Guides" and verify that the checkbox "Show grid" is not clicked.

Define the setting of the tools

The tools of Inkscape can be used with two different setting types. The first setting type consists to use the own style (colour and thickness of draw...) of the tools, wich are stored by default in Inkscape. The second setting type consists to use the last style who has been used on the preceding tracing.This second setting type is very practical when you draw a series of tracings having identical styles (or near styles).

Click the menu option "File/Inkscape Preferences"

Choose the tool that you wish to use (the Ellipse tool for instance ) and check the radio button named "Last used style". From now on the Ellipse tool will work with the style that you will have used on the last tracing with this tool. This choice can be operated for each different tools of Inkscape.

Draw

Choose the Ellipse tool and trace an ellipse. Then choose the arrow tool (select and transform objects tool) and click the ellipsis to choose her.

Click the menu option "Object/Fill and stroke".

From the dialog box "Fill and stroke", define the fill and stroke parameters of the ellipse, and in particular the fill colour, the stroke paint and the stroke style of the contour.