i read the post by blade and the replies. i've managed to draw the rectangle, but cannot fill it. it didn't come up as blue with black outline as is shown in the tutorial. my fill/stroke box is all greyed out and i can't change it. i tried ungrouping. i only have 1 layer. blade said he made some changes to preferences, but didn't say precisely what. i'm a graphic program noob, and i have no idea where to look. pls help.

hi, and welcome!
Could you give us the link to the thread and instructions that you are referring to? I have no idea what you are referring to, and a link would help.
5hx.

Hhm, yes, either a link to that other topic, or a link to the tutorial (or both), will be needed.

With well over 8,000 registered users, we can't possibly remember most names. I did try to look up the member, thinking I could search their messages, but there is no member named "blade".

this is the thread

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11419&p=41770&hilit=rectangle#p41737

tyty

Ok, I have a little better idea about your problem. But there was no tutorial mentioned in that topic.

Did you by chance download the 7z version?

Try this. Draw another rectangle. Leave it selected, so that it has arrows and a dotted line around it. Now look either in the Fill and Stroke dialog > Fill tab, and see if the button is active; or just click a color on the palette that's along the bottom of the canvas.

Can you now apply color to the rectangle?

Once you get that working, we can give you instructions to make permanent changes in Inkscape Preferences. What happens is that by default, Inkscape gives the next anything that you draw the same style (color, stroke, opacity, etc.) as the last one you drew. So if the last time you drew a rectangle, you removed the fill and left the stroke, then the next time you draw a rectangle, it will have a stroke but no fill. You can change that behavior in Inks Prefs.

Imo, it's silly to have that as default behavior. But that's just my opinion