Release notes/1.4.4

These Release Notes are in Draft Status. Commit History Main Program Commit History Extensions Important Links: Commit History Documentation

Pending questions: …

Changes and Bug Fixes

Definitely not released yet.

Highlights

Inkscape 1.4.4 is a maintenance and bugfix release, which brings you 20 crash fixes, more than 25 bug fixes and performance improvements, a couple small new features, and comes with more than 20 updated translations.

Like 1.4.3 is also a bridge release in the sense that it can be used to convert the planned Inkscape 1.5 multipage file format to the pre-1.5 multipage format. Versions lower than Inkscape 1.4.3 will not be able to interpret pages created in Inkscape versions 1.5 and upwards. Opening a document in Inkscape 1.4.3 and saving it will convert it to the current ('old') page format (MR #7608).

Background: While the 'old' format of pages in Inkscape is a custom addition that only works in Inkscape, the new format will make use of the svg:view element, which is standardized and can work in other SVG viewers, too. Find more information about this in MR #7525.

Crash Fixes

Fixed a crash …

• … trying to start Inkscape when there are two entries for the same file in the list of recently used files (Bug 6002, MR #7750)
• … trying to start Inkscape on Windows, when two recently opened files are in the same folder on different drives (Bug #6028, MR #7754)
• … when starting Inkscape with a graphics tablet plugged in (MR #7665, Bug #5618)
• … when creating a new page (Bug #5904, MR #7417)
• … when undoing the creation of a new document page (MR #7787, Bug #6060)
• … when closing the Unicode Characters dialog (Bug #6014, [1])
• … when trying to open some specific PDF files ([2], Bug #6021)
• … when trying to open an SVG file with broken markers (Bug #6040, MR #7768)
• … when opening or closing certain SVG files with the Export dialog open (Bug #5141, MR #7139)
• … when trying to open an SVG file with a broken Rotate Copies Live Path Effect created with Inkscape older than version 1.2 (Bug #5991, MR #7782)
• … when setting the width or height field of an imported raster image with locked width/height ratio to zero or no value (Bug #5428, MR #7139)
• … when using the Tweak tool with an empty text object in the selection (Bug #5918, MR #7474)
• … when using the XML editor to delete the path data ('d') of a connector created with the Connector Tool (MR #7772)
• … when trying to undo a line created with the Connector Tool under certain circumstances (Bug #5949, MR #7510)
• … when trying to use the Connector Tool to connect two objects that overlap (Bug #5314, MR #7535)
• … when selecting an object with the PowerStroke Live Path Effect (MR #7723, Bug #5997)
• … when trying to apply the Corners LPE to a group (which isn't possible) (Bug #5984, MR #7845)
• … when trying to edit a gradient after removing one of its stops by using the XML Editor (Bug #1299, MR #7532)
• … when trying to use Break Apart with certain complex paths (MR #7800, Bug #6067)
• … when trying to trace a raster image with the maximum number of traces (Bug #5475, MR #7880)

General User Interface

Canvas

• When using the Layers and Objects dialog to move objects between groups, the bounding boxes on the canvas will now show the correct size and position again (MR #7704, Bug #5996)
• Text messages that are (temporarily) displayed on the canvas, such as snapping messages, page names or measurements, no longer look like little boxes for non-Latin scripts (Bug #1707, MR #7850).

General

• Graphics that contain the version number (1.4.4) have been updated for the new release ([3]).

Clipping

• Releasing an Inverse Clip (Live Path Effect) will no longer leave the clip path invisible (Bug #5966, MR #7521).

Copy / Paste

• Copy-pasting large numbers of objects with gradients is faster now (Bug #2403, MR #7856).
• When copy-pasting Inkscape content into PovRay, PovRay no longer gets the pasted data in OpenDocument Graphics format, making copy-pasting faster while PovRay is being used (MR #7858).

Dialogs

Fill and Stroke Dialog

• Holding the plus/minus buttons of a color slider or typing a color in the text field no longer creates an entry in the undo history for each step (MR #7854)

Layers and Objects Dialog

• Opening the dialog with many objects selected is much faster now (Bug #4934, MR #7802).
• Up / Down arrow keys can be used to move around between objects again (Bug# 10033, MR #7817).
• Using Inkscape in a language that is written from right to left (RTL), it is now possible again to expand sections in the Objects dialog (MR #7825).
• Changing an object's opacity in this dialog now affects what is saved in 'last used style' (Bug #5811, [4]).

Object Properties Dialog

• Selecting paths with the Object Properties dialog open is faster now ([5], MR #7843, not merged directly, but cherry-picked).

Preferences Dialog

• Label and tool tips for node deletion algorithm choices have been clarified (MR #7819).

Welcome Dialog

• Welcome Dialog contents no longer multiplies when you open new Inkscape windows with the dialog open (Bug #5838, [6]).

Tools

Gradient Tool

• Editing gradients with the Gradient Tool is faster now, because Inkscape doesn't continuously update the tool controls bar anymore (Bug #4104, MR #7811).

Star / Polygon Tool

• A new button in the tool controls allows you to rotate the selected star or polygon into an upright position, so it will stand on two spikes (star) or on one edge (polygon) (MR #7851).

Text Tool

• NOT CONFIRMED (https://gitlab.com/inkscape/inkscape/-/merge_requests/7844#note_3242262708): The cursor no longer blinks when the text is not currently in focus (MR #7844).
• Justified text now flows more correctly when it contains fixed-width whitespace (MR #7479).
• Text rendering now respects the language metadata (xml:lang)for each tspan separately, instead of using the last tspan's language setting for the whole text (MR #7634).

Keyboard Shortcuts

• It is now possible to set a keyboard shortcut for Paste on age (MR #7764).

Palettes

• The color palette for Elementary OS has been added (MR #7636).

Templates

• The numbers in the schema drawing for the US zine template now match the description text (MR #7762).

Command Line

• The --help command no longer displays unrelated translation file contents along with the actual information ([7]).
• Removed a warning that was printed when opening a file which contained a link to an internet address (Bug #5784, MR #7625).

Windows-specific Fixes

• Inkscape built for Windows on ARM no longer opens in a terminal window (MR #7814).
• Building Inkscape with clang on Windows is easier now as the setup script now includes llvm-openmp (MR #7814).

Improvements for Development / Deployment / Testing

• libuemf is now a submodule, which makes switching between Inkscape branches during development easier (MR #7787).
• Building Inkscape with GCC 16 no longer fails (MR #7722).
• Building Inkscape will work with libpoppler up to version 26.04 (MR #7814, MR #7890).

Known Issues

• On macOS, if Inkscape has been started from the command line, extensions will not work (both in the graphical user interface as well as when only using the Inkscape commandline). Many import / export file formats provided by Python extensions are also affected. This is a security feature added in 1.4.3 for official macOS .dmg files, which fixes CVE-2025-15523. Learn more about it in our bug tracker.

• On Windows, long page names overflow the box on the canvas and leave artifacts (Bug #6121, [8] MR 7895 (in progress)).

• On Wayland (display server), depending upon the Gtk version your system uses, a crash may occur when moving a docked tab, or closing a floating dialog. Trying to undock a dialog may result in the wrong dialog being undocked (Bug #6013, Upstream Gtk issue).

More known issues can be found on GitLab.

Translations

The following user interface translations received updates (as of April 21):

• Basque
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Bulgarian
• Croatian
• Dutch
• Finnish
• French
• German
• Hebrew
• Hungarian
• Italian
• Latvian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
• Simplified Chinese
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Traditional Chinese
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese

Contributing to interface translations

Want to help with translations? Learn how to help!

Documentation

Weblate is now being used to translate tutorials, man page and keyboard shortcuts, but still needs some finetuning.

The following documentation translations received updates:

• Basque
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Croatian
• Dutch
• French
• German
• Italian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swedish
• Vietnamese

Contributing to documentation and documentation translation

Contributions to the documentation translations, as well as improvements to its contents, are welcome at the inkscape-docs repository.

Other releases

• Inkscape 1.5 — development branch
• Inkscape 1.4 — current stable release branch (1.4.1, 1.4.2, 1.4.3, 1.4.4 next bugfix release)
• Inkscape 1.3 (1.3.1, 1.3.2)
• Inkscape 1.2 (1.2.1, 1.2.2)
• Inkscape 1.1 (1.1.1, 1.1.2)
• Inkscape 1.0 (1.0.1, 1.0.2)
• Inkscape 0.92 (0.92.1, 0.92.2, 0.92.3, 0.92.4, 0.92.5)
• Inkscape 0.91
• Inkscape 0.48 (0.48.1, 0.48.2, 0.48.3, 0.48.4, 0.48.5)
• Inkscape 0.47
• Inkscape 0.46
• Inkscape 0.45
• Inkscape 0.44
• Inkscape 0.43
• Inkscape 0.42
• Inkscape 0.41
• Inkscape 0.40
• Inkscape 0.39
• Inkscape 0.38
• Inkscape 0.37
• Inkscape 0.36
• Inkscape 0.35