{"id":9801,"date":"2025-03-05T01:07:00","date_gmt":"2025-03-05T06:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=9801"},"modified":"2025-03-01T10:09:40","modified_gmt":"2025-03-01T15:09:40","slug":"text-fun-with-inkscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/?p=9801","title":{"rendered":"Text fun with Inkscape"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Inkscape is one of my favorite open-source graphic design tools. It has an intuitive interface that is relatively easy to master. As I learned to use Inkscape, I became familiar with vector graphics. I appreciated their usefulness in various projects, such as posters, t-shirts, hoodies, and any items that feature graphics. Vector graphics consist of paths defined by mathematical formulas, allowing them to be infinitely scalable without losing quality. It remains crisp and clear whether you shrink an image to fit a postage stamp or enlarge it to billboard size.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way I like to use Inkscape is to put text on paths in my creations. This is not intuitive, and I want to provide you with a short how-to to help you get started on your own Inkscape journey to creating creative graphics for your projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First you need to install Inkscape on your computer if it is not installed. On Linux, you can do that by entering the following command:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

$ sudo dnf install inkscape (Fedora\/OpenSuse)\n\nor \n\n$ sudo apt install inkscape (on Ubuntu\/Debian)<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
You can install Inkscape on macOS<\/a> and Windows<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Open the application once installed, and you will be presented with a workspace that looks like a page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
I will demonstrate a quick way to put text on a circular path. Once the workspace is open above, I will choose the \u2018Ellipse\u2019 tool, the fourth option from the top of the left-hand menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
You can see that I have created an ellipse. Now, I will use the text tool symbolized by the letter \u2018A\u2019 about halfway down the toolbar on the left to add some text.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Now I am going to highlight the text and use the \u2018center\u2019 tool at the top to center the text In the text box.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Now, I will drag my mouse pointer while depressing the left mouse button to select the text and the ellipse. This will select all the objects. After selecting the objects, I will go to the \u2018Text\u2019 menu on the menu bar and select \u2018Put on Path. \u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
You can see in the picture below that my text has been added to the elliptical object.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
I want to move the text to the top of the ellipse, and I do this by selecting the \u2018Object Rotate\u2019 button at the top menu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
This moves the text to the top of the ellipse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
If you want the text positioned at the bottom of the ellipse, select \u2018Object flip vertical\u2019 to achieve this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Whether you leave the text at the top or the bottom, you can change the color of the ellipse to white to make it disappear by selecting only the ellipse and one of the light colors at the bottom of the program window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Be sure to save your work by going to the \u2018File\u2019 menu and choosing \u2018Save.\u2019 This saves your graphic in the default \u2018.svg\u2019 vector graphic format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
You can opt to \u2018Export\u2019 the graphic by choosing that option from the \u2018File\u2019 menu at the left and choosing one of the export options displayed at the far right of the graphic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Screen picture by Don Watkins CC by SA 4.0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Inkscape is a powerful tool; for information and ideas, you can use the learning tools<\/a> on the project website.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Inkscape is one of my favorite open-source graphic design tools. It has an intuitive interface that is relatively<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":9812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[726,263,727],"class_list":["post-9801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-linux","tag-graphics","tag-inkscape","tag-vector-graphics"],"modified_by":"David Both","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9801"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9823,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9801\/revisions\/9823"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.both.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}