Hello all,

I am new to Inkscape and could need some help about Inkscape and paths as follows:

1) When double clicking a path, one can see the singles nodes that make up this path. But where can I see the exact coordinates of a single node? I just could not find this.

2) How can I remove superfluous nodes without damaging a path? Image e.g. a line going through 3 nodes A, B and C, where A is the first, B the one in the middle and C the node at the end. Obviously one does not need point B in the middle. What is the best way to remove point B?

Thanks for your help!

Welcome, @srynoname, to the forum,

ad 1)
If the "Tools Controls Bar" is not already visible, select:
Menubar | View | Show/Hide | Tool Controls Bar
The coordinates of the selected point should be given in the X and Y field.

ad 2)
I assume you are talking about Bezier-Curves (Shift+F6).
Well, I do not know the theory of Bezier-Curves in detail but the third point might be there for a reason.
It could well be that in some cases you just can select the point and delete it and the curve stays (almost) the same. In most cases the curve will change whereas in some cases you could move the handles of the other two nodes such that you get a similar curve as the original one.

Why do you want to remove this point?

There might be another option if you select the path and choose:
Menubar| Path | Simplify or (Ctrl+L)
However, in a simple 3-Point path it actually introduces more points. But for complex paths with many points, it should reduce the total number of points (but also changing the path more or less).

Edit: if you are talking about a straight line with intermediate points, Ctrl+L will remove them without changing the curve.

Win7/64, Inkscape 0.92

theozh, thank you for your reply, it was very helpful for me!

There's an option in Inkscape Preferences > Tools > Node > Deleting node preserves shape. Inkscape tries to preserve the shape. Depending on the image and the curve and how many nodes you're deleting, you may or may not notice any change.

In some cases, you might not want to preserve the shape, especially if it's a straight path. Then Ctrl + Delete leaves a straight path between the 2 remaining nodes.

If you uncheck that option, it works in the opposite way (deleting a node does not (try to) preserve the shape, and Ctrl + Delete does).