Welcome Mark!

The button to "Make selected segments lines" is the 11th button from the left, on the Node tool control bar. Does that help?

If that's already what you're doing, then maybe the nodes had somehow become deselected (a little too soon). After you've clicked to make them corner nodes, leave them still both selected. Or if you're thoroughly confused, and can no longer Undo back to that point, you can just reselect them. Do that by placing the mouse/pointer over the curved line between the nodes. Move it around slightly until you see the little hand appear. This tells you when the mouse is properly positioned to select the segment (and nodes) when you click. And then click. Now you should see both nodes turn blue, which indicates that they are indeed selected. Now when you click the 11th button, the segment should become straight.

Let us know how it goes

(I recall someone else getting stuck at this exact same step. But reading the instructions in the tutorial there, I can't think of any better way to word it. I think it's just a complex technique where as a new user, it's easy to become confused. But no worries, the more you practice, the more you learn )

Ugh! I'm really stuck with this....

Both nodes are blue after clickinng convert to corner nodes, however clicking 'make selected segment line icon' doesn't work. In the tutorial its says to select the left most node and the top centre node - I do this using the shift key with the node tool clicked. I have noticed that if I select two adjacent nodes and click on the tool the line does indeed become straight. In the tutorial the nodes are not adjacent there are other nodes inbetween. Help

I have attched the file.

Hhm, interesting. For some reason, your "C" has more nodes than in Mr. Bah's illustration. So that if you select the 2 nodes from the instructions, there are still 3 nodes in between. That's why the "Make selected segment a line" button isn't working right.

I would suggest to first delete the 3 nodes in between. That will automatically make those 2 nodes into corner nodes. So then you could skip that step. And that will allow the segment to line button work properly.

Although....note that when I open your file, I see the "Linked image not found" banner, which means you have imported (probably) an image which I can't see. (possibly the mountain drawing) I moved the banner aside to see the FHMC, and that's the C I'm looking at. Hopefully it's the one you intend?

Also, I notice that you have a little bit of a problem with the M. Yours looks a little different than in the tutorial. I might guess that extra nodes caused it not to work as instructed, as well. But now knowing this, you can probably go back and make it work better

Let us know how it goes

Hi,

Yep this seems to be the problem - although I don't understand whether the font has changed since the tutorial was written or Inkscape has changed - to add the extra nodes. To get the 'C' to behave properly I have to delete the 3 intervening nodes and the one below the leftmost node. I will spend sometime refining this over the weekend to see if I can get something similar to the tutorial. I'm also of the opinion that maybe there is an easier way to achieve the end result in the tutorial?

regards

Mark

I'm not sure what might have caused your "C" to have more nodes. I'm not sure if you had perhaps made it larger or smaller than it is in the tutorial, if that would result in extra nodes? I would think not.

But that tutorial was probably written using a much older version of Inkscape. I know that the author keeps it updated, but I suspect a few things probably escape his perusal in the update process.

I'm not sure why you would need to delete the node below the leftmost one? But I will open your file again and see if I can offer any comments.

Edit
Hhhmmm....I don't understand why you need to delete that 4th node. It works as expected after deleting the 3 in between, for me.