Tutorials and help

Tutorial targets for future releases

0.46 dev cycle

Unofficial tutorials

English

• Making Icons currently down (2008-06-22) (en)
• http://programmer-art.org/inkscape currently down (2008-06-22); video-tutorials planned. (en)
• Furboa-Tutorial (en)
• Icon Creation, devianart.com-mini-Tutorial, without text
• Cartoon Effekt] Inkscape and Gimp (en)
• Glossy Triangle (sodipodi) currently down (2008-06-22)
• article about how to create Icons (en)
• Tutorial for product illustration using Inkscape. (en)
• Video about Inkscape, avi
• Beginner tutorial currently down (2008-06-22) (en)
• List of tutorials (en)
• Inkscape Adventures by Trapper Zoid
• A Starfish with Inkscape (en) in two parts.
• Inkscape in Six Steps by Jingshao Chen
• Inkscape isometrics and tutorials by Choupil
• How to create a gherkin in Inkscape by Two Headed Puppy
• Drawing a Floor Plan

de

• Silhouette-tutorial inkscape-forum.de, (de)
• Glassbutton-tutorial inkscape-forum.de, (de)
• Vektorisieren mit Inkscape shirts.gleichjetzt.de, (de)
• Farbverläufe (Video) primfaktor.de, (de)
• Sterne und Polygone (Video) primfaktor.de, (de)

fr

• Comment faire une illustration de A à Z avec inkscape. (fr), same as above
• Pour grands débutants (fr)
• Liste des didacticiels du blog de Popolon (fr)
• Liste des didacticiels en français du site inkscape-fr (fr).
• Caligrammes avec Inkscape (fr)

it

• Simulare l'uso del secchiello (it)
• Il logo ATi con Inkscape - Parte I (it)
• Il logo ATi con Inkscape - Parte II (it)
• Il logo ATi con Inkscape - Parte III (it)
• Vettorializzare un'immagine (es.pratico) (it)
• Unire tracciati differenti (it)
• Come creare semplici ingranaggi (it)
• Effetto silhouette (it)
• Bottoni in stile web 2.0 (it)
• Guida al web design - Tutorial Inkscape (it)

pl

• Video tutorials / Filmiki szkoleniowe (pl)
• Inkscape in Practice / Inkscape w praktyce on GNU FDL licence / na licencji GNU FDL (pl)

pt_BR

• Vários Tutoriais da comunidade Inkscape Brasil (pt_BR)
• Material do Curso de Inkscape da Colivre (pt_BR)
• Brilho, Luz e Vida aos logos (pt_BR)
• Criando a logo do Ubuntu (pt_BR)
• Criando Personagens (pt_BR)
• Manual Desenho Vectorial do Inkscape (pt_BR)
• Manual do inkscape 0.40 (pt_BR)
• Utilização de Imagens SVG em Páginas Web (pt_BR)
• Introdução a interface do Inkscape (pt_BR)

zh_CN

• 一些中文Inkscape教育

Screen casts

• Drawing a simple woman face (video)
• Farbverläufe (Video) (de)
• Sterne und Polygone (Video) (de)
• A collection of Inkscape video tutorials from screencasters.heathenx.org (en)

Japanese 日本語

• Inkscapeの使い方(How To Use Inkscape) (japanese)

Outside Tutorials and Tips

• Spotcolors! Tutorial to create spotcolor separations using Inkscape
• Make business cards easily with Inkscape short tutorial and 85×54mm SVGz templates provided more Inkscape tutorials are available
• A Guide to Inkscape by Tavmjong Bah
• Stopped Clock Blog Has some good Flash tutorials & other Inkscape writings
• Icons in Inkscape - mini-tut by Daj
• Tutorial: A Simple Approach to Drawing Complex Characters With Inkscape
• Unofficial Inkscape Documentation a great work-in-progress by Kevin Charles
• Some Inkscape Know-How, a beginner's guide to creating complex shapes and flowing text into them
• Text following a circle's curve
• Making Icons With Inkscape A beginner's guide to creating nice icons in Inkscape by Ben Powers.
• Using Free Software to Do Inexpensive Digital Paste-Up A guide to using The GIMP and Inkscape to paste up pages for minicomics.
• The Right-Handed Illustration Keyboard Layout A guide aimed at tablet users that want to have a keyboard layout that is better tuned to illustration work.

Help & helpful articles

• Inkscape User manual (en, fr) or get from user_manual branch of SVN
• Inkscape Vector Graphics pdf, by Peter Kreussel (en)
• Inkscape Vector Graphics, by Peter Kreußel (de), same as above
• How to draw an arrow or line with marker with Inkscape 0.45 (en)
• art-weblog with inkscape-category (en)
• Andy's weblog with inkscape-category (de)
• Popolongraphical Blog (fr, en)
• Cours Inkscape, by Cédric GEMY (pygmee) (fr)
• Flashvideo about drawing with the pen-tool and Bezier curves (en)
• Flashvideo about creating gradients (en)
• some annotations about "Flowing Text, Portable SVG Files & Producing A4-pdf-files (en)
• Portugese Inscape Manual zipped svg (0.40)] (pt)
• Inkscape: Vector Graphics For Linux Rob, Reilly (en)
• Bezier Curves And The Different Kinds Of Anchor Points (en)
• article about inkscape, Bruce Byfield (en)
• Creating vector graphics with Inkscape by Rosanna Yuen, redhat.com (en)

Creating New Tutorials

Easy way:

1. Load up one of the existing tutorials
2. Replace its text and images with your own
3. Upload it to the Patch Tracker. Make SURE to click the "Upload and Attach a File" checkbox!

Official way:

1. Create a DocBook XML file like the Basic Tutorial DocBook
2. Follow directions in the tutorial directory README for formatting and handling of embedded non-SVG images
3. Create a subdirectory in the doc-docbook module and place the new tutorial docbook file there
4. Test tutorial generation using the `make-html`, `make-svg`, and `make-all` scripts
5. Announce the availability of the new tutorial

Tutorial Ideas

This section will consist of brainstorming and basic development of new tutorials that will be useful for new/old users.

Completed Tutorials

• Daniel Taylor's Web-Based Inkscape Tutorials - Hopefully he will make SVG tutorials that we can inlude with Inkscape, like our current DefaultTutorial.
• making shiny marbles... http://inkscape.org/wiki_uploads/marbles_tut.svg
• also see Outside Tutorials and Tips
• ElementsPrinciplesOfDesign (rejon)
• Easter Egg Tutorial

Tutorials in development

• How to create meteorological charts with Inkscape, Tutorial by Reinhard Stepanek
• Daniel Pope's Clownfish Tutorial - Part 1 Part 2 - drop me an email at mauve@mauveweb.co.uk to suggest changes.
• A very small sheet with instructions for doing isometric transformations - if anyone has comments or wants to have a look at the original svg, contact me at daniel dot hornung <at> gmx dot de (this is useful for e.g. icon work, see Bluecurve Icon Guidelines)
• Coofer Cat's Inkscape Page - Some miscellaneous meanderings with Inkscape. There are a few hints and tips that might be of use to the less experienced Inkscape user. There are also a few random bits of clipart too.

Planned Tutorials

• UsingTheCloneTiler - Clones

• Text and Typography

• Clippath/Mask/Pattern

• Effects

• SVG Filters

• XML Editor

Tutorial Scratchpad

• How to create an icon
• How to build a presentation using Inkview.
• How to build complex shapes using boolean operations.
• How to use Inkscape to create graphics for LaTeX / ConTeXt documents.
• etc

A tutorial in progress of writing by John Griessen

This writing is a journal of how a project to recreate a business card originally made with Illutrator 7, after losing the original file, so the comparison to Illustrator is much from memory and not to be taken as the last word, but a guide as to how the programs compare.

Attached is a png of the printed business card:

It originally was a collection of paths filled with colors and text objects with grouping to make replicating some objects easy.

The shell command '$inkscape --version' tells us this is Inkscape 0.39cvs (Jul 2 2004) .

The logo main element is a pseudo sine wave, and I made it before with grid snap and stretching and replicating, so now I set my units to mm and grid spacing and snap to 1 and remember how it would be nice to have major and minor grids instead of just one, so I want to create some vertical guides evenly spaced and cannot remember and start looking in docs. In Illustrator 7, clicking on the ruler bar created a guide if I recall... Once created, it could be moved with grid snap like any object, so getting it on grid or off was easy. As I read around, I find the usage of guides in "Keys and Mouse" "drag off a ruler" is the way... and a guide is on the page, and I can't snap it to easily make the accurate secondary grid I had wanted....Is there a way to? I try duplicate on the guide, but alas, it is not a regular object... it cannot be selected as they are...so I cannot replicate guides to make other grids after all... note for the beginner, to get bezier curves out of the line/bezier tool, you must click-drag. A click-only will give you only connected straight line segments. I'll have to use lines as guides, http://home.austin.rr.com/jgriessen/ill2ink-tut1.png

Other SVG Tutorials

• http://www.codeproject.com/books/learnsvgchapter07.asp

Name: Quick Guide to Inkscape Overview: This is a great concise quick guide for getting started with Inkscape.	Name: Icon Creation (Mini-Tutorial) Overview: A quick little tutorial demonstrating the design process in creating an SVG icon in Inkscape. The finished product of this tutorial is actually in the Open Clip Art Library	Name: Simple Bubble/Orb in inkscape Overview: A tutorial that demonstrates the use of the blur filter and clipping to create a simple bubble or orb.
Name: inkscape interface tutorial Overview: A detailed tutorial that describes the Inkscape user interface in detail and explains how they can be used for creating cartoony art.	Name: 3d like text effect in Inkscape Overview: A tutorial that demonstrates a technique to create text with a beveled edge effect.	Name: slime to start Overview: A detailed tutorial that shows the reader how to draw a simple cartoony slime creature using Inkscape. This tutorial also provides great detail on the thought and development process that is used for basic character development.
Name: a starfish with inkscape Overview: a simple tutorial that shows how to make a simple starfish in Inkscape. great for Inkscape "newbies"	Name: Sun background with inkscape Overview: A tutorial that demonstrates the technique of creating the "starburst" effect using Inkscape.	Name: 11 Step Tutorial To Create Eyeball Vector Art Overview: A tutorial that shows the process to create an eyeball in Inkscape.
Name: 10 step tutorial to create shinyball vector art Overview: a tutorial that shows you how to create a shiny little ball using Inkscape.	Name: Kiddy Font and Tigger Font Tutorial Overview: a tutorial on how to create interesting font effects with the help of Inkscape.	Name: Graphs in Inkscape Overview: a tutorial on how to create accurate line graphs in Inkscape.
Name: It is spring time Overview: a simple tutorial that shows how to make use of "tiled clone" with tracing.	Name: Furboa-Tutorial Overview: Learn how to create a cute little cartoony animal in Inkscape. The test subject in this case is a cute little guy named Furboa.	Name: 3D Box Overview: How to make perspective 3D boxes.
Name: How far can a bar go? Overview: a tile clone tutorial that shows how to make use of Rotation, Shift, and Color.	Name: Color B&W images Overview: Learn how to color a black and white image using Inkscape trace Bitmap feature.	Name: Dynamic Chrome Effect Overview: A twelve step tutorial on creating a dynamic chrome effect with explanations.