Installing Inkscape

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[Outdated] Installing on a Mac

The information in this section is outdated, as it refers to Inkscape and OS X versions that are no longer supported. Please refer to the installation instructions at our web page for OS X downloads and to the section dedicated to OS X in our FAQ.

There are two steps needed to install on a Mac.

Getting The Right Inkscape Installer

You need to download the right installation file from the Inkscape download page. Note that this page has a separate version for Panther (10.3.9 only), and Tiger (10.4.x) and above. The Panther version is PPC only, while the Tiger version is Universal Binary, meaning it installs on either older PPC or newer Intel Macs. The Tiger version will also work on Leopard (10.5.x)

Once you have the Inkscape installation package, double click on it and it will open a window with an Inkscape icon on one side, and a shortcut to the Applications folder on the other side. You need to drag the Inkscape icon across and drop it on the Applications folder. This will copy the file to the Application folder.

To make a shortcut on your Dock, open the Applications folder, and drag the Inkscape icon to the place you want it on the dock.

Getting The Right X11 Installer

To run Inkscape, you will also need to install X11. This is an environment that provides Unix like X-Window support for applications, including Inkscape (For more about X11 see Wikipedia). A native Mac OSX version that doesn't need X11 will be available sometime in the future (see here or here or here for a sneak peek). But for now you need to do one of the following, depending on your OSX version.

For Panther (10.3.x)

You can download a suitable version of X11 from Apple or mirrored at Modevia.

For Tiger (10.4.x)

You can install X11 from your original Install Disc 1. Scroll down the Finder window which opens when the DVD is inserted; double clic "Optional Installs"; go through the license agreement and destination selection; on the "Custom install" page select Applications -> X11 and deselect everything else; hit Install. To see what this looks like, see Jesse Andrews' article entitled Installing X11 on OS X 10.4 Tiger).

Alternately, you can download a version for PPC, or Intel from Modevia. These files are able to be freely re-distributed because X11 is open source.

Notes:

• Once installed, you should also update your X11 to version 1.1.2from Apple. This requires the earlier version, so you cannot just install the update.
• A heavily improved version of X11 called XQuartz is expected to be available for Tiger some time in 2008. This will bring X11 on Tiger (10.4.x) into line with Leopard (10.5.x). See here for a roadmap of that project.

For Leopard (10.5.x)

Leopard officially ships with a version of X11 called XQuartz pre-installed, however the preinstalled version has some problems. Starting from January 2008, the XQuartz community released several updates to the XQuartz package in Mac OS X 10.5.x on Mac OS Forge. These releases significantly improve X11 on the version of XQuartz found in the original Leopard release.

On February 11 2008, Apple released an official XQuartz update in the Mac OS X 10.5.2 update. This update addresses two security issues, although it is still somewhat behind the current XQuartz releases, upon which the official update is based. The XQuartz site notes that "10.5.2's version of X11 is somewhere between the 2.1.1 and 2.1.2 packages released through this site". It also warns that "Installing versions prior to X11 2.1.2 onto OS-X 10.5.2 may work but is not supported."

XQuartz 2.2.1 was released on May 1 2008. This version requires OS X 10.5.0, however if you install the 10.5.2 update (or other updates) after XQuartz, you will probably need to reinstall XQuartz.

For optimal performance and security, it is always best to install the latest Mac OS X updates, and then install the latest XQuartz over the top. This is what XQuartz is designed to do.

Notes:

• Because of changes to launchd, you will need to logout and re-login after installing XQuartz.
• For the keen, pre-release candidates and recent deprecated versions of XQuartz are available here. Information on a given release or release candidate is normally available at http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/xquartz/wiki/X112.2.x (change x to suit)
• The XQuartz release roadmap is available here.
• For more technical information about X11 on Mac, a good place to go is http://homepage.mac.com/sao1/X11/index.html

For Snow Leopard (10.6.x)

Everything is ok.

For Lion (10.7.x)

Everything is ok.

Problems After Installation

Keyboard mapping or Using the Alt key

Create or edit the file ~/.Xmodmap with:

  ! To make Alt keys "work" again.
  keycode 66 = Alt_L
  clear Mod1
  add Mod1 = Alt_L
  ! The right Alt key is already mapped to Mode_switch (at least on my box). Uncomment the next line, if it's mapped differently on your Mac.
  ! keycode 69 = Mode_switch
  clear Mod2
  add Mod2 = Mode_switch

X11 > Preferences > Disable "Use the system keyboard layout" and "Enable keyboard shortcuts under X11" options

Copy & Paste doesn't work well with Inkscape objects

X11 > Preferences > Disable "Update Pasteboard when CLIPBOARD changes" options

On Leopard (10.5) with XQuartz 2.2.1

Some users have reported problems loading Inkscape 0.46-2 with XQuartz 2.2.1 as Inkscape Bug #226355. This problem occurs because XQuartz 2.2.1 has changed fontconfig.

There are two possible fixes:

1. Michael Wybrow, the packager of Inkscape for Mac suggests this:

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type the following

    mkdir ~/.fontconfig

b. Rerun Inkscape.app

2. Another solution originally posted Inkscape Answer #28776 suggests editing an Inkscape configuration file:

a. Open Terminal.app (in Applications -> Utilities) and type

    nano /Applications/Inkscape.app/Contents/Resources/script

b. Press CTRL+V (scrolls down a page)

c. Change the code (use the arrows keys to get to the right part) from:

    """
    else
            # Leopard onwards...
    
            # Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
            test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig || exit 12
    """

to:

    """
    else
            # Leopard onwards...
    
            # Warn the user about time-consuming generation of fontconfig caches.
            test -d ${HOME}/.fontconfig
    """

d. Save changes by pressing CTRL+O and then ENTER to confirm

e. Run Inkscape and wait for first-time caching

Also it seems that having the "authentificate connexion" option checked in Preferences -> Securtity tab does interfere with Inkscape launch. Uncheck it if Inkscape doesn't launch.

I've installed X11 on OS X but Inkscape keeps asking for it

On Panther (10.3), you may need to uninstall/reinstall or upgrade X11. Use OSXPM to uninstall X11 - Install OSXPM and select the Uninstall tab, scroll down to X11User, select it and hit Uninstall. Then you can install X11 properly.

Installing on Unix like systems

Using Precompiled Packages (For Normal Users)

Ubuntu Linux

Probably the easiest way to install on Ubuntu is to use the apt command.

Open a terminal and type;

 sudo apt-get update (enter)
 sudo apt-get install inkscape (enter)

If your Ubuntu version does not have the most current Inkscape version in its repositories (yet), you can use the stable ppa to get the latest stable Inkscape release.

Ubuntu Linux Development Versions

Development versions are available from our trunk ppa for Ubuntu and derivative Linux distributions.

Note: Development versions offer some nice new features, but can be somewhat unstable, so save often. Inexperienced users will also quite possibly have problems installing them.

openSUSE

openSUSE includes Inkscape in the Gnome repositories. The newest version of Inkscape releases is in Gnome:Apps.

[Outdated] Slackware Linux

The info in this section refers to outdated versions of Slackware and Inkscape.

Binary packages (0.46+) are available for Slackware 12.1, 12.2, 13.0 y 13.1 en LinuxPackages.net.

-- smaug 01:27, 27 Nov 2010 (GMT-4)

I used the precompiled rpm provided by Inkscape for the 0.44 release as my gcc wouldn't compile it. All you need to then do is run rpm2tgz at the command line on the package, eg " rpm2tgz inkscape-0.44-0.i686.rpm" and then install with "installpkg inkscape-0.44-0.i686.tgz".

-- Pbhj 13:29, 1 July 2006 (PDT)

Compiling Your Own (For The Techies)

The info in this section is mostly outdated. While the general principles may still apply, the libraries, version numbers, and concrete steps have changed since this has been written.

NOTE: this isn't finished. I currently have two screwed up systems from fooling with bleeding edge GTK+ stuff, I don't know how that happened. !! :) I'll get to the end over the next few days tho. Setting up a more stable home network atm. -- Tsingi

This was written building an InkScape snapshot on a new RedHat Linux installation. If you find that it doesn't answer your needs exactly, please update this file when you solve your particular problem.

Installing libraries

If you are running a debian based system, and have something like synaptic that lists recent enough versions of the libraries below, use that. If you want the latest libs, which you may need, especially if you are installing a snapshot or building from svn, you will want to download sources. Generally you will get a foo.tar.bz2 or foo.tar.gz or foo.tgz file that you will need to unpack and build.

bz2 files are the smallest. Uncompress them first by typing bunzip2 foo.tar.gz then unpack the remaining tar file by typing tar -xvf foo.tar

foo.tar.gz files and foo.tgz files can be extracted in one operation by typing tar -xvzf foo.tar.gz

Change to the directory that you just created foo. type ./configure then make then, as root, make install

Sometimes that is all you will need to do.

Sometimes you will run into dependancy errors because you need a library you haven't installed yet. If you try installing inkscape without some of these dependancies, you will get a list of what you need. hopefully the instructions below will help you solve these dependancies.

Running ldconfig

after installing libs, (as root) you need to run ldconfig so that the linker can find the libraries that you have just installed. If you aren't logged in as root (i.e. if you became root by typing su) you may not have the /sbin/ directory in your path. so if ldconfig isn't working for you try typing /sbin/ldconfig

pkg-config

pkg-config is a utility that lists dependancies for libraries that sets up flags and paths for compiling. When it's working right it's wonderful. Getting it to work right is a pain in the ass if you don't know how. It's amazing how silent an IRC channel will get when you mention it.

pkg-config references pc files that applications install to give information about them. These are called metadata files, metadata means data about data. For a list of libraries that pkg-config sees, type pkg-config --list-all Having done that and looking at a list of pc files on my system (using find /usr -name "*.pc" > find.pc, then browsing find.pc) I see that I also have a directory called /usr/lib64/pkgconfig/ I might as well get that in there while I'm at it since none of those libs show up in a listing either and that's where most of them are.

Depending on what shell you use, there are different ways of doing this. I'm adding a couple lines to my /etc/profile file:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib/pkgconfig/:/usr/share/pkgconfig/:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig/:/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig/

export PKG_CONFIG_PATH

Note that I have a new 64 bit system, which is why I'm going through all this. You probably won't have a /usr/lib64/pkgconfig/ unless you do too, so don't just copy what I did. Also note that on a Windows system PATH type environment variables use semi-colons ";" for delimiters as opposed to colons ":"

Using bash, to immediately source the file in the shell you are using, type . /etc/profile'. This won't test to see if the path gets put into your environment when open a shell though, so maybe a better thing to do is close your terminals and open new ones to see that it is actually set automagically.

Ahh, I can now configure glibmm. The hair on the back of my neck is laying flat again, I think I'll have a coffee.  :)

libgc

download and install the latest version of libgc[[1]]

libgc installs in /usr/local/lib by default. If you have installed it and it is still not linking, you may not have that in your library path. There is a LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable, or alternatively you can make sure that /usr/local/lib is listed in the file /etc/ls.so.conf

libsig++

download and install libsig++ [2]

this should be fairly straightforward.

glibmm

This is where, if you haven't wrestled with pkg-config on your system you start scratching your head. Because when you run configure on glibmm you may an error like this

checking for GLIBMM... configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.8.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.8.0) were not met. Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment variables to avoid the need to call pkg-config. See the pkg-config man page for more details.

It seems that most packages install in a non standard prefix, in direct defiance of everything we have been led to believe regarding the concept of standard, so you may have to deal with this. See the note on pkg-config above.

gtkmm [3]

---

(Ben) Tsingi, you are writing in the 'User Documentation' section. Most of this material is only appropriate for Developers and some would be better on the Mailing List. You will probably find that when you have finished, this page will be edited and pruned back. FWIW, I was expecting to find information about 'apt-get' (Debian) 'emerge' (Gentoo) and AutoPackage (the others).

Build Dependencies (K/Ubuntu)

NOTE: This list may not be complete, please add any packages you might need in addition!

To install the dependencies under Ubuntu (9.10), execute the following commands as root (sudo). Keep in mind that for other versions of Ubuntu this may not apply.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install build-essential libxslt1-dev libgsl0-dev libgtkmm-utils-dev \
libpangomm-1.4-dev libboost-dev libpopt-dev

In addition to those dependencies you need libgc (as mentioned above). Just download the latest version and build it.

wget http://www.hpl.hp.com/personal/Hans_Boehm/gc/gc_source/gc.tar.gz

tar -xvf gc.tar.gz

cd gc*

./configure --prefix=/usr/local

make

sudo make install

Now you (should) have all the requirements to build Inkscape from source. To do that, run:

wget http://inkscape.modevia.com/svn-snap/inkscape-current.tar.bz2

tar -xvf inkscape-current.tar.bz2

cd inkscape*

./configure --prefix=/usr/local

make

sudo make install

That should do it. (If the configure script tells you it requires an additional library, look for it via sudo apt-cache search some-name, install the package via sudo apt-get install some-package, and don't forget to add it to the list above.)

Installing on a Windows system

Stable version

You can find the installer from download page. Installing should be an easy step-by-step (next-next-finish) process.

Say a few words here about the difference between the traditional Windows "Inkscape installer", and the designed-for-USB-flash-drive "Inkscape Portable". ( Release_notes/0.47#Packaging_Improvements ).

Unstable development version

First be warned. Unstable and development mean you likely will encounter crashes, usability problems and sometimes lose data. Ctrl+S will become your friend. If you cannot take this risk, please use the stable version instead.

If you are still reading, you are probably one of the brave ones who wants to be on the bleeding edge. If so, follow these steps:

1. Download the latest build

On download page there is a section named "Development Versions". Visit the linked website for Windows and download the file for your processor architecture with the latest date on it.

2. Extract the .7z archive

Extract the archive using the 7zip unpacker. You will get a directory which contains several files including inkscape.exe.

3. Run inkscape

Run the inkscape.exe file by double clicking it. That's it. You can also drag files to inkscape.exe to have these opened.

Don't forget: please help Inkscape by reporting bugs, encouraging developers or fixing bugs yourself.

Multiple versions for testing

For testing purposes it is good to be able to test multiple versions of Inkscape to find when and where some problem first appeared. For this reason you are able to store and use as many parallel versions of Inkscape as your disk has room for.