Hi,

I'm using inkscape with a Wacom tablet. How do you easily draw a dot with inkscape? I.e. when I draw and "i", it assumes I want to start a straight line when I try to put the dot on the "i" with the pencil tool, which is inconvenient...

Bruce

Welcome to InkscapeForum!

Hhhhm, well with the Inkscape interface alone, you would use the Pen or Pencil tool and Ctrl + click. But I think it's different with graphics tablets. There a topic here somewhere, within the last 6 monthes, or maybe a year, I'd say, that addresses this issue. But the title is not necessarily indicative.....the title is more technical.....OH my old brain, lol! Let me do some searching..... I think you can adjust something to help, but iirc, there's not a clean solution. I'll let you know if I can find it

Edit
Aah, well I actually found it fairly quickly. I'm not sure if this is exactly what you need, but it does contain a lot of info which should be helpful: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11482

I also found another, rather old one, whose info may actually be outdated now. But just in case.....uh-oh, lost the link. I'll be right back with the link

Edit
Ok, I found it, but after reading more closely, I don't think it would be helpful.

the bezier tool does need consecutive node points. you will find the pencil tool not very satisfactory to make dots, with either mouse or tablet. i find the calligraphy tool the best, with correct settings of course.
the pencil is more for lines, short or long or straight or curvy, but lines. it's essentially a bezier tool that you don't need to click to create nodes, as inkscape creates many nodes for you as you move the move.

I respectfully disagree, chriswww. It can't get much simpler than Ctrl + click. If they are too large or too small, you can change their size in Inkscape Preferences. Note that Ctrl + Click does not work in spiro spline mode. Also, you can reduce the number of nodes that the Pencil tool creates, by increasing the Smoothing setting in the Control bar. Unless you mean that it's different with a tablet?

But I think the problem that Bruce is having with the tablet, is probably (I'm assuming) using Calligraphy tool, which is entirely different.

i've a tablet and I find the calligraphy tool the best or most natural one for doing dots, for me at least. i never knew about the ctrl+click.
when i want perfect dots I make a filled circle and scale it down to desired size, usually using a mouse for this.
i do agree with OP that the tablet support for inkscape or X or whatever the case may be...is not quite as "natural" as one would expect on a tablet. some other native osx graphics app i bought feels much more at home with the tablet. I guess it has a lot to do with the osx native app being authored much more recently, and they designed the guts of the app with a tablet in mind from day one. having said that I'm still pretty happy with the tablet support afforded in inkscape.