Hi!

I would like to know if there is any way to convert curves into a series of lines in inkscape. The reason for this is that I want to convert svg files to another type of file that only has straight lines, so I need to remove the curves. If there's no way to do this then I guess I've got a lot of tracing to do...

Thanks for reading this, I hope someone can help me.

Hi Jonny,

I am not really sure what effect you are after, but perhaps this will work:

Select your curve (path) with the Node Tool (2nd icon from the toolbox at the left side of the screen)
In the Node Tool - Tool control bar that appears at the top of the screen, you'll find "Make selected segments lines" (11th icon from the left side, looks like 2 nodes connected by a straight line).

- If you need seperate line segments you can also use the tools to break the path where desired, the icons and the tooltips help with that. After that you use "break apart" from the Path menu.
- If you need more accuracy (more but shorter line segments) you can select all nodes, and click the + symbol to add more nodes, and then follow the previous steps.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Syllie

That seems to be exactly what I need. Thanks for your help, syllie!

You can also apply the extension specially created for this use case: 'Extensions > Modify Path > Flatten Bezier' which offers more control about the smoothness of the resulting path:

This extension converts selected Bezier curves to an approximation composed of straight-line paths. The number of line segments used is determined by the Flatness parameter. The smaller the Flatness, the more line segments are used.

Thanks, that should make it even simpler.