Hello all,

I currently have quite an intricate coastline drawn out (mostly using the pencil tool), but as I haven't drawn it in one continuous stroke, and have stopped and started in various places, it seems that the coast is not one long path, and I can't fill it.

Is there any way to join all the paths to make one continuous path for the coastline, so that land area may be filled? My main problem is having difficulty finding exactly where the breaks in the path are, as I seem to have drawn them very close together.

The only solution I can think of is to open a new layer and trace the coastline making sure that it is all continuous. But perhaps there is a more convenient way...?

Many thanks.

First use this tool to select all of the lines / the whole coastline.

At the bottom of the window you`ll see how many objects (paths) is selected, just to give you an idea how many times you`ll have to do the following:

1 - Deselect all. Using the same tool, select the path at the one end of the coastline. Once the bounding box appears, use the Shift+Alt+LMB, drag a cursor across the nearest and unselected path (red jaggy line should appear), release the LMB and that should also add that neighbour path to the selection (also release the other buttons before proceeding).

2 - Now, use to select two ending nodes (with a gap between them) which you`ll be able to find where bounding boxes are closer to each other. Once selected, use "Join selected endnodes with a new segment" from the nodes toolbar.

Go for the step 1 and continue ,)

Another manual method would be something alike:

You can combine paths together by pressing Ctrl+K when all parts are selected.

Let's say you have those paths with a black stroke.
To point where paths start and end, draw a circle next to a path with a 1 pixel width stoke given.
Use a bright colour, like red, and in a size that stands out next to the 1 pixel line -size matters here.
Then at the object menu, convert that circle to a marker.

After you made that custom marker, select the strokes you want to combine, duplicate them, set the new marker you made to the path's ending and starting nodes -it can happen that at first the custom marker doesn't appear in the dropdown marker list, so click on it twice-.
Group these objects together, and move them to the bottom (End).

After these, combine the original paths together (Ctrl+K), and you can see where to connect unconnected nodes.

Another solution, much faster and inaccurate,
would be converting the strokes to paths (Ctrl+Alt+C), adding them together (Ctrl++),
then drawing a centerline of the object with the interpolate extension, as described here by Brynn:
http://www.inkscapeforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=13929#p54314

Hello
About combining paths, I dont have a good advice...
But, If you are tracing a map, maybe using the pen is not the best tool for that job. If you are copyng from a bitmap, you can use the trace bitmap tool, and then with the closed path you can add nodes with the nodes tool, to get a more precise profile.

Maybe set the fill to close large gaps, then zoom out 5% and try, zoom out again, try... until it fills. Might be ok, might be very bad, depending on how big the gaps are.