Inkscape Community
Help Using Inkscape => Inkscape Beginners' Questions => Topic started by: Ambee44 on April 04, 2018, 01:16:54 PM
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Obviously, I'm a very stupid newbie to Inkspace, but since I'll be doing as little as possible with it (just working on some icons), I was hoping I could use it intuitively after reading just a few pages of the manual. Unfortunately, that's not the case, so I hope you'll forgive me for asking here.
When one creates a new blank file, a rectangle appears that is much smaller than the workspace. If that represents a printed page of standard letter size, I don't want it at all, since I'll be working with one image of approximately 300 pixels in width, and who wants to work with such a small image in such a huge workspace? So how can I get rid of it? My biggest problem is that when I save the file (primarily to use in Adobe Illustrator CS2 - an old version), the output formats I've tried all seem to include that annoying rectangle!
Clearly, my stupidity is crippling me, and I'll go through a tutorial when I next get the chance, but any quickie help for now would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
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Hi! Have you tried looking at the XML Editor, maybe these things are locked?? :xml:
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Welcome to the forum!
That rectangle represents the page border. When Inkscape opens for the first time, it opens at 35% zoom (a pet peeve of mine) and the page is set for the standard A4 size (I think it's a common print size, but not sure if it's the same as 8 x 11.5 sheet of paper). You'll probably want to set the zoom to 100% (see the bottom-right corner of the window, and also note the Zoom tool :zoom: ) or else whatever you draw will be huge.
Anyway, the page border is not really part of the drawing. It's just there to use as a guide. As far as I understand, it should not be showing when you open the file in Illustrator (or any other program).
The reason the page border is important, is because if you decide to use the SVG image that you create (or other format), on the internet, or maybe even if you decide to print it (depending on the printer), parts of the drawing which are not inside that page border might not show up.
However, there are plenty of ways of using Inkscape, where you don't really need the page border. So it can be hidden. File menu > Document Properties > Page tab > Page border (near the bottom) > Show page border. Uncheck that.
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Additionally, you can resize the page to be 300px wide, in the document properties. Or you draw something that is 300px wide, then do Edit > Resize page to content.