I already have a rectangle drawn and I have a curve drawn *its all the way across so its not like there is an opening or anything* so I try to fill in the portion of the curve and it says that stupid "area not bound can not fill" error. *I hate it and see no real purpose it serves but to be annoying and get people irradiated.* I am not seeing what I am doing wrong. there are no holes the thing is drawn out and the program says its not bound so where is the bound this area key?

Hi.

With some trick you can even fill open areas with the bucket tool.
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16198#p59733
Though I wouldn't suggest to use that tool at all.

LadyMav wrote:...I am not seeing what I am doing wrong. there are no holes the thing is drawn out ...

Perhaps you can attach your svg file and others can take a look.

Another tactic is to open a second instance of Inkscape and see if you can isolate the issue from other elements on the page.

Often, new users are not aware that they are drawing on the default 35% zoomed canvas. Lines that look like they connect, don't really connect. (Drove me crazy as a newb!) Try setting canvas to 100% zoom, and maybe you will see the gaps?

Bear in mind that the bucket fill works with pixels, and only considers a small area outside the image visible in the window. If you zoom in so that the bounded object extends beyond the visible area, Inkscape can see that as unbounded. Best results tend to come from running full screen then zooming so that the area to be filled is almost filling the canvas.

Also watch out for the Threshold setting - if that's too high then you can also get the "area unbounded" message. This is particularly a problem if the colour of your boundary is close to that of the background.