All 21 Inkscape Tools Explained in 10 Minutes

[Music] this is Nick with logos by Nick comm and in this tutorial I'll be giving you a brief overview of all 21 of Inkscape stools I've even put together a written overview that you can use for a quick reference anytime you'd like I'll have a link to that in the description of the video and if you'd like a more in-depth explanation of these tools along with every other feature in Inkscape be sure to check out my Inkscape masterclass it's a collection of over 60 videos where I go over every tool and feature in Inkscape and I explain what it is and demonstrate how it works I'll have a link to that in the description of the video as well let's have a look at the Select tool to get us started because this is the tool that you'll probably be using most often the Select tool as the name suggests allows you to select individual or multiple objects at a time you can also use it to make some common transformation to your objects like scaling rotating and shearing the Edit paths by nodes tool allows you to transform the structural properties of an object by altering the individual coordinate points of that object otherwise known as nodes you can reposition them add new nodes delete nodes and even change node type whether it be a sharp corner or a rounded edge the tool also allows you to change the contours of an object's lines by manually moving them or by adjusting the handles of its nearest node the squares and rectangles tool is used to create four-sided vector objects whether it be a rectangle or a perfectly symmetrical square by default your rectangle will have sharp corners but you can use the little round node at the top right to give you a rectangle of rounded corners you can easily switch back to sharp corners anytime you'd like by clicking the make corners sharp button in the tool settings menu the circles and ellipses tool is used to create vector shapes with curved edges like ellipses and perfectly round circles it can also be used to create partial ellipses by maneuvering this circular handle at the right edge of the shape keeping your cursor outside of the ellipse will allow you to change it by its radius whereas moving your cursor to the inside of the circle will allow you to change a by its diameter at any point you can reset the shape back to being an ellipse in the tool settings menu the stars and polygons tool is used to create multi-sided objects it's divided up into two separate functions one for stars and one for polygons when creating stars you'll be able to set the number of corners the star has the spoke ratio between each star and you can choose to give your star rounded corners as well if you'd like when creating polygons you'll be able to set the number of sides and corners and you can choose to make them round it if you'd like this can all be done in the tool settings menu or by manually adjusting the handles directly on the canvas the 3d boxes tool allows you to quickly create three-sided vector boxes that appear as if they're three-dimensional the X Y and z-axis can be adjusted independently in order to determine the box's width height and depth the red lines represent the height of the box the blue lines represent the width of the box and the yellow lines represent the box's depth you can also change the perspective of the box by moving the nodes associated with the red and yellow lines the spirals tool is used to create vector objects that follow a spiral path the tool allows you to adjust the number of turns the spiral has as well as its divergence from its center point this can be done either in the tool settings menu or directly on the canvas the Bezier pen is used for manually drawing your own vector shapes by creating a series of nodes and lines you can make both straight and curved lines as well as sharpen rounded corners the tool also has a variety of settings built in including spiral paths and B splines each of which determines how the pen behaves they can be used to force any behavior you'd like including curved lines rounded corners parallel lines and more the free hand lines tool functions much like the Bezier pen only it allows you to draw your shapes with your hands movement as opposed to clicking to create a bunch of nodes this would make it more ideal if you were using a drawing tablet or some kind of stylus much like the Bezier pen the freehand aligns tool has various settings built in that will dictate the tools behavior the calligraphy pen allows you to create freehand vector objects using a classic brushstroke and shape of your choosing the tool has various presets built-in that will determine the size and shape of your brushstrokes there's also a variety of settings that you can tweak to dictate how the tool will behave the text objects tool is used to create vector text and wording of your choosing it allows you to flow your text into a bounding box or simply generate it all on a single line you can also use the tool settings to adjust the font size orientation spacing between letters and words as well as various other adjustments the gradients tool allows you to color your objects with multiple colors that fade into each other otherwise known as gradients the tool allows you to edit your gradients based on colors used number of colors and the position of the color is relative to the object that it's being applied to the gradients can follow either a straight linear path or a rounded radio the mesh's tool functions similarly to the gradients tool only it allows you to give your objects a gradient that follows either a grid otherwise known as a mesh gradient or a cone otherwise known as a conical gradient you can use the tool to manually alter the points of your meshes and cones directly on the canvas the pick colors from an image tool commonly referred to as the dropper allows you to set an object's filling stroke color based on another object's color the tool allows you to sample colors from both vector objects and rasterized images your selected object will be filled with whatever color you sample from the other object you can also hold shift while sampling to set the selection as your objects stroke color you can also click and drag to create a selection that the tool will use to generate an average color of the colors in that area the fill bounded areas tool commonly referred to as the bucket tool allows you to fill empty spaces with the predetermined fill color in order for the tool to work the area you're filling in must be completely surrounded by a closed path it will not work on empty spaces that bleed out into the open canvas the tool will reference whatever you have set as the fill and Stroke color for filling in your objects the tweak objects tool allows you to make compound alterations to multiple objects pads and colors all at once alterations include moving multiple objects at once shrinking them rotating them or duplicating them it also allows you to make adjustments based on colors and blurs the spray objects tool allows you to generate multiple objects by spraying them onto your canvas the objects that are sprayed is determined by the object you have selected at the moment the tool has a variety of settings that will allow you to adjust certain behaviors like whether or not the objects overlap the size of the scatter area whether or not to rotate the sprayed objects and more the eraser tool is used to delete segments of a vector path in a freestyle technique that is based on your hands movement the tool can work on multiple objects at a time and it has a variety of settings built-in that will allow you to dictate how the tool behaves it should be noted though that this tool only work on vector paths it won't work on text objects and rasterized images the diagram connectors tool allows you to create diagrams by generating pads and boxes that link objects together much like every other tool it has a variety of settings built-in that allows you to dictate how the tool behaves whether it be avoiding selected objects or ignoring selected objects the zoom tool allows you to increase or decrease your view of the canvas you can zoom in to see fine details zoom out to get a more complete view of the canvas or set the view ratio to one-to-one in order to see how the canvas looks at full size the measurement tool allows you to measure any object based on its length width height radius or diameter it allows you to choose from a variety of measurement units including pixels inches centimeters millimeters and more the tool also has a setting built-in that allows you to convert your measurement into an object that you can work with further and export as a graphic of its own and that should do it for all of Inkscape stools as a version 1.0 if you have any questions leave a comment below and as always thanks for watching you

Channel: Logos By Nick

Views: 97,445

Keywords: inkscape, inkscape tools explained, logos by nick, logosbynick, nick saporito

Id: qq7HsMvEVmU

Length: 9min 16sec (556 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 29 2020