The Book of Inkscape: The Definitive Guide to The Free Graphics Editor

by Dmitry Kirsanov

This is it. The complete and definitive guide to Inkscape, the free, vector-based graphics editor that competes with expensive drawing programs like Adobe Illustrator and CorelDRAW.In The Book of Inkscape, core Inkscape developer Dmitry Kirsanov shares his design experience and knowledge of Inkscape's inner workings as he walks you through the basics of using the drawing, working with objects, transformations and styling, adding text and shapes, and more. Kirsanov couples his detailed explanations with step-by-step tutorials that show you how to create business cards, animations, and technical and artistic drawings.In addition to the basics, Kirsanov teaches you how –Navigate the canvas and customize your workspace and views–Create new objects and then transform, style, clone, and combine them–Use drawing tools, strokes, and Bézier curves–Use gradients, patterns, filters, and path effects to liven up your work–Use the XML Editor to view and manipulate the structure of your artwork–Work with layers, groups, object order, and locks to control your images–Export your artwork to various formatsThis practical guide will show you how to harness Inkscape's powerful features to produce anything from a child's doodle to high-end, professional design projects. Now go ahead and draw something fun.

Genres: Reference, Nonfiction, Art Design, Design, Ebooks, Software, Computers

879 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 15, 2008

Reviews

[Invisible · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a nice "user manual" for the Inkscape program, which may still be held relevant today, since there were few disruptive changes in the Inkscape program itself.

At times, the descriptions might seem dry, but the author tries to make each functionality relevant, and the color inserts, and more interestingly tutorial chapters at the end of the book, showcase steps to achieve various goals in vector editing program.

Contents are:

Introduction
1. Inkscape and the World
2. An Inkscape Primer
3. Setting Up and Moving Around
4. Objects
5. Selecting
6. Transforming
7. Snapping and Arranging
8. Styling
9. Stroke and Markers
10. Gradients and Patterns
11. Shapes
12. Editing Paths
13. Path Effects and Extensions
14. Drawing
15. Text
16. Clones
17. Filters
18. Bitmaps
19. Tutorial: Designing a Business Card
20. Tutorial: Creating an Animation
21. Tutorial: Drawing a 3D-correct Cartoon
22. Tutorial: Artistic Drawing
23. Tutorial: Technical Drawing
24. Tutorial: Rose
A - An SVG Primer
B - Import and Export
C - The Command Line
D - Keyboard Shortcuts
Index
Color Illustrations

Though the development of the program may seem to have slowed down, recently Google pushed new winds in their direction (probably because SVG is becoming integral part for Android developers). Designers and animators for web, might still find Inkscape useful for quick sketching of the scene. Yet many SVG editors and optimizers have cropped up in the meantime which are working inside browsers. Time will tell if this little gem has lost its shine...

[Ron Hatch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good coverage, easy to read. Use as a reference when learning Inkscape in depth.

[Daniel]

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