Hi Everyone!

I'm new here. I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions on the best way to figure out how to use Inkscape for a total beginner? I've been using tutorials and trying to feel my way around it. I'm a total newbie to design software, so it's all like learning another language to me.

I guess I should say what I plan on using it for....I want to be able to trace or actually draw my jewelry sketches in Inkscape so that I can make them vector files to send to be laser cut.

Any suggestions on tutorials or anything that can help me learn this software would be greatly appreciated. Until then, I'll keep trying to figure it out.

Thanks,
JW

I like to follow the active topics and download/open SVG files that others have shared, to see how they are assembled.

Best way to get help is to provide example SVG files illustrating problems.


Regards,
TD

Welcome aboard!

To begin I would suggest to open the program and simply try out the things.
Click, double click on every tool icon on the left, doodle some around.
For the purpose you mentioned mostly you will use the pen tool, and the node editor tool.
And the path menu on top.

If you wish for a more organised way to learn, here is a nice collection of tutorials:
http://forum.inkscapecommunity.com/index.php

Good luck!

If you don't mind the blatant self-promotion, I'm writing an ongoing series of tutorials for a magazine that you can find listed in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=11981

If you scroll down towards the bottom you'll find the Special Edition releases that gather together just the Inkscape tutorials without the rest of the magazine content. There's one for articles 1-7 and another for 8-14, but the magazine tutorials continue beyond that to part 18, with more to come.

I've tried to ramp up fairly slowly, but also tried to be fairly comprehensive. The first article goes from absolutely zero experience with Inkscape up to creating your first image using a limited set of tools. From then on I try to add more tools and capabilities with each instalment. The most recent few articles cover manual and automatic tracing of sketches and images, though not specifically from the perspective of laser cutting.

junqiweponri wrote:I'm a total newbie to design software, so it's all like learning another language to me.

Oh man, you're in for a treat! Learning the concepts is the hardest part. Once you have that, the rest is just practice.

Like I always do, I will suggest the heathenx videos. They were entertaining, "ASMRist" and educational all in one package: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/

And welcome!