Hello everyone,

I'm actually need to use inkscape to make graphics.
I have a graphic with 4 curves corresponding to 4 different paths, as I need to export a greyscale image it is necessary to add markers to the different curves, allowing to differentiate them.
My problem is that each curve is composed of a lot of nodes.
So if I tell inskape to add markers at intermediate nodes (let say squareM marker), it results in too much markers.

I found How to decrease the number of nodes using ctrl + L, but unfortunately it decreases the overall quality of my curve.
Thus my first question is :

1/ Is it possible to add a marker every two or three node for instance ?

My second problem is that a lot of the markers exhibit a rotation (thus squares look like diamonds), probably because the initial node was somewhat rotated (I cannot change this since it is imported from another software) thus :

2/ Is there any command to automatically put all node/markers "horizontal" such that all my markers look like squares and not diamonds ?

Thanks a lot, and excuse my broken english, hope it is clear enough !

Have a good day.

I succeeded to get the correct orientation for the markers using the XML editor (Change 'Auto' to '0' in the marker properties)

However I'm still looking how to space markers in order to avoid markers overlapping, such hope someone knows that.

haven't played that much with markers...but even the svg specification (which inkscape builds upon) for markers is fairly limited.
think you might have more flexibility with live path effect. a more complicated alternative is to create glyphs that you want to use as markers, and use those glyphs as text along path. but that might take a bit of time adjusting the spacing and offset etc.

duf59 wrote:1/ Is it possible to add a marker every two or three node for instance ?

No - a (start-, mid- end-)marker is an attribute of the path itself - not of individual nodes. The current SVG 1.1 specification has no option defined to skip markers at repeated node intervals.

duf59 wrote:2/ Is there any command to automatically put all node/markers "horizontal" such that all my markers look like squares and not diamonds ?

Inkscape does not has a GUI command to change the orientation of the markers (Inkscape's stock markers, and custom ones created in Inkscape default to follow the direction of the curve). See this earlier post: «Re: Orientation of path markings» - you can try if you succeed by removing the 'orient="auto"' attribute from the marker definition [1] or setting it to an explicit (absolute) angle [2].

[1] «If the attribute is not specified, the effect is as if a value of "0" were specified.»
[2] The marker definitions can be edited from within Inkscape using the built-in XML Editor (menu 'Edit > XML Editor…'). They are stored inside the <defs> section of the SVG structure.