The Inkscape Interface – Inkscape Friends

The purpose of this tutorial is to serve as a reference for other tutorials, which mention the various different toolbars. The image above shows the location and names of the toolbars and other parts of the interface. This tutorial does not describe each and every area of the interface. To find out those details, you might want to read Lessons 2.2 in Inkscape for Artists — Step by Step. So in addition to being a reference, this tutorial is also a companion to Lesson 2.2. Here we will briefly elaborate on a couple of areas.

Tool Controls Bar

The tool controls bar is one of the most important parts of the interface, especially for beginners, before they have memorized all the keyboard shortcuts. The icons/buttons on this toolbar change whenever a different tool is enabled. For some tools, there are not very many buttons, but for other tools, there are more buttons than can fit on the bar (depending on your screen size). If that’s the case, you will see a tiny arrow at the far right end of the bar, and clicking on it will display the rest of the buttons.

Status Bar

The status bar bears some discussion, in case the graphic above is not completely clear. It lies below the palette, and is indicated by the pink/purple arrows (in the image above), at the very bottom of the Inkscape window. Inkscape’s status bar, in the author’s opinion, is one of the most important parts of Inkscape, and for beginners, perhaps the single most helpful feature.

Primarily the status bar gives information about objects that are selected on the canvas. Although a couple of areas give information all the time, whether anything is selected or not. The status bar consists of a few different smaller areas:

Style Indicator

The style indicator is highlighted in medium blue, in the image above, on the far left end of the status bar. In Inkscape, “style” means what the object looks like. So the Fill and/or Stroke color, their individual opacities, the stroke width, and the overall object Opacity, can be found and/or set here. This is important because when users get stuck, knowing which object is selected is one of the first steps to getting unstuck. You can glance down to the style indicator to make sure it shows the expected information for the object you tried to select.

Layer Information

Just to the right of the style indicator, the layer information is highlighted in yellowish-green above. It shows which layer the selected object occupies. If there are multiple layers in the document, clicking on this will open a dropdown menu showing all the layers. Clicking on a layer in the dropdown menu activates that layer on the canvas, and selects all the objects in that layer. Sadly, this feature which has been part of Inkscape from the very early days, seems to have been dropped in version 1.4. (This layer section still appears in the status bar, but it does not open a menu anymore.) You can use the tiny eye button to make sure the layer is visible or to hide the layer . And you can use the lock button to either lock or unlock the selected layer.

Notification Area

To the right of the layer information above, the notification area is highlighted in purple. Whenever the Selection tool is enabled and something is selected, the notification area tells what kind of object it is. For example Star, Text, or Path. It also tells what layer the object occupies, and the layer status. If the Node tool is enabled, this area tells important information about nodes, such as how many and what kind of nodes are selected.

This information is important because when users get stuck, knowing what kind of object is selected, together with knowing which object is selected (from the style indicator) and sometimes the layer status, is the first step in getting unstuck.

For example, let’s say you’re zoomed way in, to make node editing easier. And you want to tweak the nodes of a certain curvy black path that’s on top of some blue objects with black strokes, but you can’t find any nodes. You don’t want to have to zoom back out, so you can see what’s selected. You can look in the status bar to find out that what actually is selected is a blue Star with a black stroke, not a black Path. So now you know that you have selected the wrong object, and you need to try the selection again.

Even if nothing is selected on the canvas, Inkscape notices which tool you have enabled, and the notification area offers suggestions for how to use that tool.

Pointer, Zoom and Rotation

The orange highlighted area on the far right end of the status bar above, shows the pointer position, the zoom level and canvas rotation status. The pointer position may be the least understood area of the whole interface. The zoom level and rotation status both reflect the current state of the canvas, and can also be used to set or change those values.

Miscellaneous

One more important item to note.

Show/Hide

In View menu > Show/Hide, users can choose which part of the interface they would like to show or hide; according to personal preference, or just to temporarily provide more canvas area on the screen.

Conclusion

If you enjoyed this tutorial, you can find many others in the menu at the top of this page. If you would like to learn more about Inkscape, you might find Inkscape for Artists — Step by Step to be a helpful read. And if you have any questions or comments about this tutorial, please feel free to post in our forum. Or you could share your artwork, or just visit and say Hello !