Just tested on Windows XP, Inkscape v0.47: black star grouped with a white circle to make a masking object, blue rectangle being masked. The portion of the blue rectangle under the black star is transparent, while the portion under the white circle is visible.

The issue you're running into is that filters always use the entire source object, which includes the stroke. As far as I know, there's no way to tell the filter to ignore the source object's stroke. The workaround is to duplicate your group, place the groups exactly on top of one another, give the ...

The difference with MS Paint is that in MS Paint you use the color picker to change the "active" color to whatever you click on. Inkscape doesn't really have an idea of an active color. In Inkscape, you use the color picker to change the fill or stroke color of the currently selected objec...

I think the Trace Bitmap tool can get you pretty far, actually. I downloaded your image and got nice results. Try this. ⋅ Import your image: File -> Import ⋅ It should be selected upon import, but if not, select it. ⋅ Path -> Trace Bitmap ⋅ In the bottom secti...

Another way would be to select the group, hold down the Shift key, select the new object, and hit Group button or Object menu > Group. There are situations where kelan's suggestion would work better than mine ;) That can be useful, too, but will actually create a new group. So instead of adding the...

Sure. Double-click the group you want to add new objects to. That will "enter" the group. You can tell by looking at the layer selector in the status bar. It'll say something like #g3587 . Now anything you draw will be added to the group. When you want to leave the group, double-click a bl...

Just in case someone searching comes across this message thread and really wants to apply a filter to a whole layer, here's how. ⋅ Create your filter in the Filter Editor. (In version 0.47, under the Filters menu, choose Filter Editor... at the bottom.) ⋅ Change the name of the f...

Under the Path menu, use the Combine option with both paths selected. Or try pressing Shift+Ctrl+K with both paths selected. You can add to an existing path when using the :tool_pen: Pen tool by selecting the path you want to add to, then holding Shift when you click to start the new line. Or are yo...

First of all, thanks for these tutorials. You've got some great design work in there. I just wanted to make a short comment on the perspective section of Australia abstract wallpaper tutorial. In that section, after drawing the rectangle that will provide the perspective, and then moving the corners...

Select both lines and go to the Path menu, then choose the Combine option. This will make both lines part of the same path, although they'll still be separate pieces. Now use the :tool_node: Node tool to select the two nodes you want to merge into one node. Look at the toolbar and find the icon that...

If you're using version 0.47, you can use the Scatter extension for this, which is found under the Generate from Path submenu under Extensions. ⋅ Create your path and the object you want to place along it. ⋅ Select the object and press Home to ensure it is the topmost object. &sd...

I don't completely understand what you mean by your point #1. Are you adding new objects to a collection that are all clipped at once, or are you adding a new object that is clipped, but separate from the others? In the second case, you'll need to clip everything individually, yes. In the first case...

Actually you're doing everything right, you just have the horizontal line too long. Try making it shorter, or the oval bigger. That line is repeated around the oval, so the shorter it is, the more bumps you end up with. Your line is relatively long compared to the size of the oval, so it isn't getti...

Two things to verify: 1) that the object being used as the mask (white fill, black stroke) is on top and not underneath, and 2) that the two objects are in exactly the same position. Both of these should happen by default when making a duplicate, as long as you didn't move anything.

The easiest way is probably with a mask similar to your second example. ⋅ Create text. ⋅ Duplicate text (Ctrl+d). ⋅ Set duplicate's fill to white and stroke to black. ⋅ Set duplicate's stroke width to an appropriate amount. ⋅ Select both objects. &sd...

Unfortunately, offsets tend to look wrong on text because the corners get smoothed. Sometimes that's what you want, of course, but from the image in the original post, I'm guessing not in this case. The correct way to do it and keep the text editable is using clones. Due the styling behavior with cl...

Good news! You can actually automate this almost completely in version 0.47. (I think it works pretty much the same in 0.46, if you have that, but I can't be sure exactly what's different.) ⋅ Use the Pen tool :tool_pen: (keyboard shortcut: b) to make a short, perfectly horizontal line. You...

It's only a sad read if you're misinterpreting it. He's not saying Inkscape shouldn't support CMYK. He's saying the developers shouldn't be thinking only in terms of CMYK when implementing alternate color workflows, because that would end up to be too limiting.

If you hold the Alt key while you select, the first time you click it will select the top object, but if you keep clicking, it will start selecting objects underneath, from top of the z-order down.

You can also Shift-Click the rotation center to reset it.

The Inkscape Launchpad (https://launchpad.net/inkscape) is *where* you go to make suggestions, but I don't know *how*. Posting that screenshot as a sample with the suggestion would seem sensible. You make suggestions just by filing a bug normally. Then the bug triage team will mark it at Low or Wis...

Wow, that's amazing. Are you working from a photograph?

If you use the kerning keys to move letters up and down without any letters selected, it affects all letters after the cursor position. But you can also select some letters by holding Shift and moving the cursor, and then the kerning will affect only the selection.

1. Inkscape has other blend modes, but not as many as Photoshop. It's got Darken, Lighten, Multiply, Screen, and Normal (which is the default, what you called Addition). You can apply them to entire layers through the Layer dialog (Ctrl+Shift+L), or to individual objects using a Filter Effect. Use t...

You're going to have trouble manually specifying the height and width, because that always sizes the object by moving the right and bottom sides. Like you said, it doesn't resize the object in every direction, so the center will move. I don't know if there's a to enter exact dimensions but keep the ...