Inkscape Tips And Tricks

Transcription

1 Inkscape Tips And Tricks Install Tux Plot extensions for Inkscape Select from the drop down list Install Inkscape Extensions. Your password will be needed to compile and install a component needed for the contour extension. When finished you will have

2 1: contour fill extensions 2: silhouette extension used for silhouette print and cut 3: tux plot print and cut extension for cutters without print and cut ability 4: others like graphtec and cutok in development 5: create image outline in development How To Get A Quick Outline From A Bitmap Image (jpg and png etc) You can delete the flood fill leaving just the stroke outlining the bitmap. This feature is mainly aimed at Tux Plot Print And Cut feature for cutters without that ability built in. See YouTube video for using Tux Plot and Cameo3

3 Contour Extension To create contours inside or outside of your object you must follow a few steps before applying the extension. 1: select object > path 2: extensions > modify path > flatten beziers (use.1) 3: path > break apart 4: extensions > tux plot extensions > contour fills Select inside/outside of your selected object to fill. Adjust other options like how many contour lines and density etc. Preparing Clipart For Use In Tux Plot Most clipart consist of filled objects with no color applied to outlines. Tux Plot only really cares about outlines firstly and a filled object secondary. The color of the outline or fill does not matter but the seven standard Tux Plot colors are Black, Red, Green, Blue, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow (colors are plotted in that order also in Tux Plot). Interior cut lines can be black and perimeter cuts red so all interior cuts are completed before outer perimeter is cut. It s common practice to highlight all clipart objects in your job and clear all fills then select a color for outline/stroke. If your only cutting simple vinyl then your job may be sent to Tux Plot at this point. Some jobs require more complex edits in Inkscape depending on the job needs. Tux Plot Requires Stroke/Outline To Have A Color, Any Color Assigned To It!

4 Clipart Consisting Of Filled Only Objects And No Colors Assigned To Outlines Same Clipart With Fills And Red Outlines Same Clipart With No Fills And Black Assigned To Outline/Stroke Note: Unwanted fills can easily be removed in Tux Plot with one click if fills were mistakenly left in your job. In some cases fills are wanted in a job such as engraving with lettering, fills add a much bolder letter to the finished engraved piece. Also a forgotten outline color for an object can also be added from within Tux Plot.

5 Job Placement On Your Media Your Inkscape document size represents your working media size for this particular job so for example if you are using a mm square sheet of vinyl as your media size and you size your Inkscape document to this size Tux Plot will automaticly use this size for media when it receives your job from Inkscape (saves a lot of time sizing it in Inkscape). If placement of your job on the media is not important and you want to start the cut where you jog the blade to and set origin on your cutter just size the Inkscape media to image as shown below. Many vinyl cutters use this method to jog to corner of media set origin on cutter and cut job, but the media size MUST be set to image size as shown below! Using US Letter As Media Size Media Sized To Image Size Tux Plot also has a feature to resize your media to image size if you forgot to do it in Inkscape. Found below in Inkscape File > Document Properties you will find the button to auto re-size document to job size.

6 If your page size is sized to drawing size as shown above then the cut job will start at the point where ever you Set Origin to on your cutter. This is a common practice with many vinyl cutters.

7 Please watch corresponding YouTube video for Silhouette Registration Marks using Tux Plot and also Tux Plot Print And Cut for cutters that don t have print and cut ability built-in to their firmware. The first time you use Tux Plot Print And Cut and Silhouette Registration Marks please confirm the settings match the images below. Inkscape will then remember those changes and no further adjustments are needed. Silhouette Cameo Registration Marks Tux Plot Print And Cut Registration Marks Once the above values have been adjusted Inkscape will remember these for future use and values need not be changed. Full Page or Image Selection and Border Margin values must match corresponding values in Tux Plot!

8 Inkscape Printing Problems For some unknown reason Inkscape has always given me printing issues. When I try to print a tabloid 11x17 document the Paper Size in the printer properties is always greyed out not allowing me to choose the document size as shown below. I have a work around although rather inconvenient. I save as the document as a PDF or SVG and open the document using the default viewer for that file type. Full printer options are now available as shown below. Note: This is mainly a problem if using Tux Plot print and cut on larger media sizes. Since sending the job to Tux Plot via the Hot-Folder is a Save As action and not a print action it is not affected and functions as it should.

9 Paper Size and Orientation are now available and my document prints on the tabloid paper and in the correct orientation. Size An Object In Place When sizing an object in Inkscape the default is to use the lower left corner of the object as the anchor point that never changes, both when sizing with arrows at corners of object when selected or manually typing in new size values. This is fine for most objects but in some cases you want the anchor point to be the center of the object when re-sized the center remains constant like the lower left corner in the default re-size method. Shown below are the two methods Default with Lower Left corner as anchor Re-size in place with center of object as anchor.

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11 In the second image Size In Place example your size controls are not entered manually as the in the default method. In Inkscape top menu bar OBJECT>TRANSFORM and use the transform window shown in screenshot as your starting point. Example Lets say your using a plasma torch to cut out holes and shapes for a large industrial job. The holes are for very rigid pipes to pass through or be welded to the steel plate your cutting holes in but you decide to double the size of the pipe. Now you need to double the size of the hole the pipe passes through, by using the size in place method the pipe will line up with the hole and no undo stress is put on the pipe trying to force it to line up with the new hole size. If the hole was re-sized using the default re-size method where lower left is the anchor point the pipe would not be aligned and assembly problems can occur. This same example is easily transferred to engraving, vinyl cutting etc it just depends on your particular job.