I'm trying to get this effect. For example, when I'm done with my drawing and I want a stroke around the outside, I could group everything, duplicate it, then stroke that. But sometimes it gets too big. Is there a way that I can flatten the duplicate so it can't revert to the original parts?

post an example of the effect you're trying to get. i'm not clear what you're going for.

Um. I can't really think of one. It would be as if I exported it and used Photoshop to add the stroke effect. Only the bounds are traced not the insides. Just a simple uniform tracing of the final product.

mystery wrote:Is there a way that I can flatten the duplicate so it can't revert to the original parts?

I think what you want to do is a path->union on the duplicate; that gives you one combined shape that's like a silhouette of the original (path-combine is another possibility). You might also want to do path->"break apart" to remove any holes (or not). Then, add a stroke to the unioned object (and remove/correct its fill), and move it behind the original.