Hello,
I'm trying to achieve something like this:


I figured the best way would be to draw some circles, group them then get Inkscape to create a new shape by outlining the whole group. Ignoring the multiple colours this is how I started:


But I can't figure out how to do this

As a fudge I filled in all the circles with one colour then filled in the non-overlapping sections with squares to give me the solid shape (not great but it worked). However a second problem then appeared. If I copy/paste and reduce you cannot fit the smaller shape inside the larger shape and leave the same edge, like this:


Can anyone help, i.e. how to outline my shape and resize to allow it to be inset (and not using my hack of filling in gaps with random shapes.

Thanks.

Draw your circles.
Select all.
Path menu>union.
Edit menu>Duplicate.
Path menu>dynamic offset. Drag the tiny little handle. Yes, it's there. Look harder!

or:
Draw your circles.
Select all.
Path menu>union.
Path menu>linked offset.

Linked offset will allow you to change the original path's shape and your new path will follow. Also note! in your particular case, it works better if you drag the offset to be larger than the original, because your shape is 'bulging out' not 'pointing out' like a star for example. Otherwise your corners will get rounded.

There's a lot of material here in the forum about this subject but as a beginner you might not want to get too involved just yet.

Thanks. I did actually try edit/union but nothing happened. Then when I tried it again from what you said I noticed an error message across the bottom of the screen (would be nice if it flashed or something ) saying something like it couldn't create a union. So I ungrouped and tried again and it worked.

Brillaint too on the bulging. I got rounded corners, and from trying months ago I got rounded corners too. Starting from the inside and creating bigger shapes worked perfect

One question though, is it possible to set the size of the offset, I want the stripes to be 7mm think. The only way I could see to do it would be to draw a guide line then when doing the offset draw and stop when I see it touching the guide.

You

Thanks, all is working now.

As for working in pixels, not much use when you're sending something to professional printers and require mm accuracy

Or maybe that's why inkscape keeps insisting on offsetting my objects by half millimetres (unless that's how it compensates for strokes).