Sometimes part of the document will have text right-side-up, while other parts will have text that's upside-down, or sideways (especially when you're making artwork that folds, like boxes, tent cards, etc.)

It'd be neat if you could rotate the document view in Inkscape.... For example :

• View > Rotate > 90° clockwise
• View > Rotate > 90° counter-clockwise
• View > Rotate > 180°
• View > Rotate > Arbitrary
• View > Rotate > Reset Rotation

That way (without changing the actual contents of the document) you could flip it around to any angle you like, allowing for easy reading/editing of text that is otherwise sideways or upside-down.

Hi SplittingPixels,
Welcome!

I'm not a professional or anything, just a happey Inkscape user. But it seems to me like this type of a feature would be better suited for an image or document viewing program (like eg - Windows Photo Viewer, or Adobe Reader). That said, I don't know of any program which displays SVG formatted images, although I would not be surprised if such a program does exist

SplittingPixels wrote:It'd be neat if you could rotate the document view in Inkscape....

Yes, it is a well-known feature request:

Bug #170498 in Inkscape: “Rotate and Flip Canvas”

brynn wrote:But it seems to me like this type of a feature would be better suited for an image or document viewing program (like eg - Windows Photo Viewer, or Adobe Reader).

It really depends on use case and work flow: many tablet users are asking for such a feature; and it is well known e.g. from CAD applications where you have multiple coordinate systems (World, Object, User-defined) and can adjust the current view e.g. to a selected object coordinate system or a custom defined one for easier editing.

something akin to the CAD feature request is the possible use of the svg coordinate system features, as described http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/coords.html i think it's quite possible in svg to set up objects and viewports so that what for a local object is up is in fact down (or left or other) higher in the hierarchy.

i think the other kind of requirement to temporarily rotate view for doing artwork (especially with tablet workflows) is quite different, i.e. only temporary and should not affect the underlying svg. having a tablet i appreciate the need for this feature request, as the much more natural input using a stylus is easier when doing vertical oriented strokes, just as a pen & paper drawing would be physically rotated when doing non-digital art/graphics work. which is also why a lot of the higher end art graphics programs have key shortcuts to quickly and temporarily rotate the whole view.

something entirely different is the facility of some graphics cards to rotate entire screen (including OS and all apps) with keyboard shortcuts. but this doesn't work/help as the input device (tablet) won't match screen orientation.

not sure if i covered all the angles, but that's fairly complex by now.

chriswww wrote:i think the other kind of requirement to temporarily rotate view for doing artwork (especially with tablet workflows) is quite different, i.e. only temporary and should not affect the underlying svg.

You misunderstood what I tried to describe about rotated views in e.g. CAD applications: the basic use case (ignoring concepts like switching to a local coordinate system for input, or model vs paper space in AutoCAD) does not affect any object coordinates or drawing content but only the view on the drawing content i.e. it refers to the same "temporary" change of the user viewpoint.

cool. i thought you meant switching to local coords for an object, or akin to programmatic graphics in "turtle graphics (tm)". those were the fun days.

Bump: this seems to me still relevant, or more so now with presentation extensions like Sozi.

Is there any way to rotate the *view* in Inkscape (instead of the objects themselves)?

Don't know of any.

I am doing some packaging design and this would be great. I am making a slip for our box and in order to have graphics continue over edges I have a document that is the length of the slip unwrapped. For the back side I would love to be able to edit the document upside down so I can more easily visualize and work with the content.

danimal wrote:I am doing some packaging design and this would be great. I am making a slip for our box and in order to have graphics continue over edges I have a document that is the length of the slip unwrapped. For the back side I would love to be able to edit the document upside down so I can more easily visualize and work with the content.

You can add your interest to the "wishlist" for this feature set here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/170498