Another cutting question

[Dissonance]

Hello! I need a little help cutting a path. I used to be able to do it, but can't remember how. I spent about an hour searching for a solution on Google. Everything I found seems to be a little different than my situation.

I created a spiral with the spiral tool, and I want to cut a piece of it out. First, I convert it to a path. Then, I add new nodes where I want to cut it. I have to zoom in to add nodes on both edges of the line.

From here is where I'm stuck. Nothing seems to work, not even break path at nodes, cut path, and break apart. Please help.

Thanks,
D

[brynn]

Hhmm, it's hard to say what's going wrong.  The Cut Path operation, or using node editing to break the path, should work.  Neither one of those automatically removes the parts.  You still have to select and delete them.  Could that be where you got stuck?

I'll outline these for you, and maybe you can see where you went wrong.

1 -- Draw the spiral.
2 -- Draw whatever shape you want to cut out of the spiral, and move it on top of the spiral.
3 -- Select both spiral and the other shape.
4 -- Path menu > Cut Path  (It might look like nothing happened, but really, the paths have been cut.)
5 -- Select the pieces that were cut, and delete them.

That's probably the fastest way to do it.  But I'll quickly cover the more "manual" way too.

1 -- Draw the spiral.
2 -- Add the nodes at the places where you want to cut the path.
3 -- Using the Node tool, select all those new nodes.
4 -- Break Path at Selected Nodes button on the control bar.
5 -- Path menu > Break Apart (It might not look like anything has happened, but it did.)
6 -- Select the parts that you want to remove, and delete them.

Note that both of these processes probably result in the spiral not being a single object anymore.  Probably it now is a lot of individual paths.  So if you need it to be a single object, you'll need to either Group them, or use Path menu > Combine.

Does that help?

[Dissonance]

Hi brynn,

I tried both your suggestions with no success. Whenever I remove part of the spiral, the remaining part gets distorted. I attached the file if you want to try. I'm trying to clear the part of the spiral's line over the Roman numerals.

Thanks,
D

[brynn]

Oh, I see what the problem is.  Apparently you have used Stroke to Path on the spiral, so it doesn't behave as expected.  Did that happen while you were experimenting, and you don't really need it?  Or do you really need the spiral to be made with a closed path?

Just in case you don't know what I'm talking about, see my screenshots of your SVG file.  Did you notice that there are 2 nodes, very close together, at each place on the spiral where there should only be one node?  Look at the red square in sp1.png, and then look at it zoomed in, in sp2.png.  (click on the screenshots to make them bigger, or else you can't see what I mean)

I would suggest to draw the spiral again, and this time don't use Stroke to Path.  Only use Object to Path.  Or if you really need it as a closed path like that, I can give you instructions to make it work that way.  Just let me know 

[Dissonance]

Oh, I see what the problem is.  Apparently you have used Stroke to Path on the spiral, so it doesn't behave as expected.

Yes, this was the problem. Thank you for the help!

Best,
D