The first minor release since Inkscape 1.4 is here!

No worries, you didn't miss 1.4.1! Due to a signficant bug that was only discovered shortly before its planned release, 1.4.1 has been merged with 1.4.2. 

With lots of fixes, some smaller improvements and even a few new features around file format support, we believe it was well worth the wait.

Here's a summary of what to expect from the new release:

• A new splash screen, providing a visual cue while Inkscape loads in the background
• Initial support for importing Vectornator / Linearity Curve files
• A new extension to Clean up Paths
• Substantially improved Affinity Designer files (.afdesign) import
• 20 crash/freeze fixes, many of which affected PDF import
• more than 50 other bug fixes and small improvements, including improvements to Boolean operations, layer selection, minimal window width and restoration of Spray tool buttons' functionality
• and 15 updated translations!

For more detailed information on the changes in version 1.4.2 available in the release notes.

Again, thanks to all Inkscape users and contributors for their support in identifying and flagging these critical issues for us through sending bug reports for our volunteer developers to examine and solve.

Should you experience an issue while using Inkscape, please let us know! We've put together a step-by-step video to help you post your first bug reports on Gitlab.

Built with the power of a team of mostly volunteers, this open source vector graphics editor represents the combined efforts, passion and work of many hearts and hands from around the world, ensuring that Inkscape remains available free for everyone to download and enjoy.

If you'd like to contribute to the project, you are more than welcome in our project's global community! You'll find the list of ways to connect with us here.

You can also help Inkscape to stay alive and evolve by making a donation.

Get Inkscape 1.4.2 for Linux, Windows or macOS!

Draw Freely.

For the past few days, 7 Inkscape Members met up in Frankfurt, Germany to collaborate on various projects and get to know each other.

We were especially delighted to have two InkStitch maintainers, a major downstream project of Inkscape, join us. This way, we got to learn about the struggles and worries of projects using Inkscape better, and even built a new capability for extensions to interact with Inkscape during the event.

Marc, our release manager, cleared out our merge request backlog, reviewing and merging various contributions. He also set up a new web-based translation service, so that translators don't have to learn how to use git, and we hopefully see better Inkscape translations in many languages. He also collaborated with Vaibhav on getting the handles behave well when editing Text to Path.

Jonathan, extensions maintainer, enabled Inkscape to tell extensions in real-time about changes in the document (merge request), and even update the document in return. The new system works on all major platforms. This feature was requested by our InkStitch friends, who will use it to build a preview of the stitch pattern while the user is working on the document. Variations of this feature were often requested by extension authors, so we're excited what the community will use it for!

Tav was working on delivering color font support, and helped Martin and Vaibhav with a wide variety of text-related problems.

Martin wasn't able to attend in-person, but did join via Video Chat to work on PDF support and help answering questions with other people in Frankfurt. He got up at 3am his time to attend!

Ravi is one of our GSoC students from 2024, and we're happy that we got to know him better & to integrate him into our team! He is still working on the node-based filter editor, his GSoC project (merge request), and is hopefully finished soon.

Vaibhav also is a former GSoC student, but is contributing regularly since. He is currently working on improving Text on Path (merge request). Thanks to his work during the Summit, Text on Path now loops around on closed paths (an SVG2 feature)  and has correct and intuitive handle movement.

Kaalleen, InkStitch maintainer, helped us understand their packaging process and helped shape the direction of development on the extensions environment. Apart from that, she worked on various InkStitch issues, including support for long-arm quilting machines. Also, she gifted all of us beautiful bags with the 1.4 About screen stitched on (she also has a tutorial for this on the InkStitch website).

The beautiful embroidery Kaalleen gifted to the other participants (from the InkStitch Website).

After 3 days full of coding and enlightening conversations, we now take home with new ideas in our luggage, and look forward to the next meeting - May 2025 in Nuremberg, just before LGM.

The 7 participants of the Frankfurt Summit.

November 6, 2024, marks the end of the 20th anniversary year for the Inkscape project, and the beginning of a new decade of adventure. There were a few milestones this past year, among them an informal global celebration, a bug-fix program, an About Screen Contest, an Inkscape Summit, a summer of code, and the launch of version 1.4.

Here’s a brief look at some of those milestones:

Bringing contributors from around the world together in real time online

Looking back over the past year, our 20th anniversary got off to an active start with an online anniversary party in November 2023, where users and contributors gathered over the span of several time zones to welcome guests who shared their passion for Inkscape, their art, and discussed how and why they contribute to the project. The world showed up to hang out and filled us all with pride to be part of this open source community.

From there, things moved quickly with preparations for version 1.4 and all the elements that come together before the annual version release.

Inkscape’s 1.4 About Screen Contest

Preparations for the popular About Screen Contest began early in the year, setting up the voting space and rallying contributors to organize the promotion and review of contest entries. The winning entry was featured in the 1.4 release that launched in the Fall of 2024. If you’re curious about the contest, feel free to check out the rules and history of this tradition.

Inkscape’s Contributor Blog

Some of our developers, especially those who are paid by the project (i.e. from your donations), publish articles about their work in our Contributor Blog, which can be found on the web site under the News tab. Among the blog posts include ones the progress made on our Bug Accelerator program, the Adobe Illustrator File import project, and the GTK4 migration work. You can find the posts through to Spring 2024 online.

Inkscape Summit 2024 in Rennes, France!

We had a great Inkscape Summit in Rennes, France, in May 2024. Our three-day meeting was well attended and offered an opportunity for developers and a couple of other contributors to meet, work, and discuss the future of the project. A member of the SFC was in attendance and participants had a chance to exchange with a representative from the Open Document Project, too, on open source projects.

Learning to Code through Contributing to Inkscape

Inkscape developers continued the longstanding tradition of participating in the Google Summer of Code (GSOC) program, which enables people new to open source projects and students to learn about software development and gain experience within a project environment. Several Inkscape developers mentored three students in 2024, one of whom is still working hard. If you’re curious to know what these students accomplished, their code journeys can be found on the GSOC site.

When it comes to the software itself, Inkscape has been embarking on big changes that will span a couple of future versions, specifically the transition to GTK4. This year marked a big milestone as the master branch was successfully migrated to the new code base. Also in the works is the future of CMYK color inside of Inkscape, though there is no final date set yet for integrating a system.

Inkscape Monthly Art Challenges

This past year has seen regular monthly Inkscape Challenges in the forum, posted on social media channels, to encourage Inkscape artists to share their work and learn new skills. From easy to intermediate projects to challenge your Inkscape skills, there’s something for everyone who is curious to learn. These challenges, along with the many opportunities to learn and collaborate within the project, have helped to bring new contributors to the table, too. You’ll find plenty of art to enjoy in the project’s forums!

Looking at Possible Futures for the Project

In October, an informal discussion was held among contributors to look at the possibilities of taking the  project in a new direction in the future. As with some other open source projects in the past, Inkscape is seeking to grow and explore possible futures, including being an independent organization. While there are no immediate plans to move from SFC, the discussion led to contributors beginning to imagine what Inkscape might look like three years down the road. At 21, it’s time to consider the possible bright futures ahead.

For now, we would like to say a big thank you to all of you, Inkscape users, contributors, and supporters. It’s in working together that this software program continues to develop and grow.

Curious to know what contributing to Inkscape might bring to your world? Get in touch!

In the meantime, enjoy using Inkscape, a professional quality vector graphics software on your Linux, Mac OS X and / or Windows desktop computers.

Draw Freely.

On November 18, 2023, the Inkscape project celebrated its 20th anniversary.

The anniversary celebration was an online get-together of Inkscape users and contributors.

This was an initiative by the Vectors team and the intention was to bring Inkscape users and contributors together to celebrate 20 years of Inkscape.

Inkscape is used by people around the world. To accommodate that, two sessions were organized in different time zones. The first session was scheduled at 12:00 UTC for folks from regions like Eastern North America, Europe, India, & Indonesia. The second session started at 18:00 UTC for other regions, including Oceania.

The attendees were invited to share their approximate location in the world so that we could “map” the Inkscape community that came together to celebrate the anniversary. The interactive map can be viewed online. It is a beautiful souvenir of Inkscape’s global reach.

The larger Inkscape community also sent birthday wishes which were read during the sessions. An interactive slideshow of the wishes is available on Gitlab.

These sessions featured interviews from people in the Inkscape community. The interviewers asked guests about their Inkscape journey, how they discovered Inkscape, what they liked most about using Inkscape, among other questions. Guests answered that they use Inkscape for various things, some of them being designing board games, a children’s book for their loved ones, doing professional design work. One guest said they loved the feeling of freedom when designing with Inkscape. Another guest wanted a free vector graphics application, they stumbled upon Inkscape and found a bug. After reporting it, they ended up eventually contributing translations for their language.

After the interview ended, the room was opened to the chat so that people could ask the guests questions. The sessions went well over time as those in attendance wanted to keep the great Inkscape party going.

You can get involved with the Inkscape project, too, and help make the next 20 years even greater!

After months of waiting, we are finally ready to unbox the latest version of Inkscape... meet 1.4, the Geek edition, where accessibility and customization reign.

Inkscape project developers, most of them volunteer contributors from countries around the world, have been plugging away behind the scenes on new features, improving current ones, bug fixes and setting the stage for the arrival of GTK 4.

Let’s dig into some of the new and improved features that enable more customization and better accessibility in Inkscape in a cool, geeky sort of way. Inkscape Power Users, this one’s for you!

Filter Gallery Dialog

The Inkscape 1.4 Filter Gallery dialog is your new entry point into the world of filters. Head to the Filters menu to find it and your favorites more easily, with previews by category or by typing key words in the search bar. This includes those custom filters you’ve added – look for them in the Personal category. Accessibility features here include the ability to change the size of the preview of thumbnails.

Modular Grids

For those of you seeking the ultimate in symmetry and accuracy, you’ll find the new grid selector buttons a quicker, more visual way of identifying your grid of choice. For the new modular grids, you can adjust plenty of grid parameters separately, from height and width to horizontal and vertical gaps – including adjustments at the grid module (rectangle) level. Enable this option by heading to document properties.

Swatches Dialog

Inkscape’s Swatches dialog has a fresh new face. It now includes a drop-down menu with previews of color palettes. You can display them with their colors’ names as a list or a grid. For Power Users, you can now increase the tile size, too. Search for your custom swatches, or those of your customers, too. Import palettes from the dialog, including those from Adobe Color Book that use CIELAB colours, while support for those with CMYK is still limited for now. Transitioning from CMYK to RGB has been improved.

SVG Font Editor

For those of you who have a thing for fonts, Inkscape 1.4 is your new go-to for customization. You’ll find an easier route to buttons for sorting glyphs and removing pairs. Powerful customization at it’s finest in Inkscape!

Unified Font Browser

Inkscape is testing out a unified font browser preview. Activate this feature in Preferences and restart. After that, you will access visual previews for fonts with settings such as adding your own sample text. Check for particular font characteristics by searching fonts by collection type. Click on the one you want and watch it be applied to your text.

Customizable Handles

With Inkscape 1.4, you’ll now see that the on-canvas handles are customizable by size, colour, stroke width, outline and opacity. This will be updated live in Inkscape when the CSS file has been saved.

Shape Builder

You can now tackle quick edits on raster (pixel) images within Inkscape using the Shape Builder tool. Load an image and select sections that you want to isolate. Choose them with Shape Builder to clip them. Note that to edit them, you’ll need to release the clip and then unlink the clone. This tool is useful for a quick fix, isolating part or parts of an image quickly.

Object Properties Dialog

As of Inkscape 1.4, the Objective Attributes and Object Properties dialogs have been rolled up into one. This one-stop-shop is where you can change the different properties of objects, including rotations and corners.

Import & Export Updates

If you use Inkscape to develop and publish documents, you’ll be happy to know that you can now add links from one page to another within a PDF document–think table of contents.

Additionally, Inkscape 1.4 can now open Affinity Designer files, adding more versatility to the program.

Icon Sets

Welcome, Dash, the latest icon set to be accessible within Inkscape. For those of you who like customizing, you’ll appreciate this additional set of 500 plus icons to explore. These include cursors, both scalable and symbolic versions, that work on light and dark themes.

That concludes our brief wander through some of the top features included in Inkscape 1.4. For more information, the Inkscape 1.4 Release Notes are up to date to with information on all the changes included in this edition.

Get Inkscape 1.4 for Linux, Windows or macOS!

If you have questions for us, head to our web site and find our online community, where you can also find ways to get involved in the project.

In the meantime,
  Draw Freely.

We had a great Inkscape Summit in Rennes, France. Our three-day meeting was hosted by long-time Inkscaper's Elisa and Cédric in their school of design Activ.design

Five Inkscaper's travelled to the event (Marc, Mikekov, Adam Belis, S-Rafael, and Tav). Two more were present via video (Martin and René). Jonathon dropped in occasionally. And our hosts hung out with us when they weren't too busy preparing for LGM (Libre Graphics Meeting). In previous years we called these events "Hackfests", but have decided in order to be more inclusive to non-programmers and encourage greater partipation these events will be known as "Inkscape Summits".

These important events give the contributors of Inkscape a place where they can get some work done. Rafael [pictured left] is seen here working on some graphic user interface code at the event space. Mike, Adam, and Rafael spent a lot of time discussing and implementing UX designs. Marc did lots of merges, especially forward porting. We had great discussions on the future of Inkscape, including a plan for an improved Live Path Effects system (more of a Live Object system), better testing, etc..

During breaks and after the day, the contributors will go out for a meal and socialise. Rafael, Adam, Mikekov, Tav and Marc [pictured right] sit at a restaurant near the event space for lunch and get to know each other better.

All of these activities are funded by the Inkscape project, who provides travel and event expenses and run by one of the team. This is all funded by our kind donors who help the project cover the costs to run these important events. So a big thank you to all of you, you know who you are!

After the Inkscape Summit event, everyone was able to participate in the Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) which happened directly afterwards. We will often try and organise our own physical meetings along side another conference or event. Tav [pictured left] is seen talking to other LGM attendees who will be contributors to other Free Software projects such as Blender, Krita, Penpot, etc. While smaller than in the past, there were still lots of great talks including talks on color, type, animation, and chocolate.

Meeting with the wider community of Free Software contributors helps us stay up to date with what's happening in the wider industry as well as meeting with some pretty cool people who help run a lot of the software which our users also depend upon. Big thanks for the organisers of LGM for running the event this year, which is the first in person event since Covid.

See you all next time!

We have a winner! Congratulations to the winning entry by artist Inkonic for their artwork "Inkscape's Path–Artist's Blossom". 

The theme this year was "Growth" and Inkonic's winning artwork depicted this wonderfully with branches and leaves growing directly out of the work of artists' hands using artists' tools ― literally drawing themselves and their worlds into existence and making them grow. Congratulations to Inkonic ― and thank you for helping Inkscape continue to grow!

We would also like to thank all of the artists who submitted artwork for the contest. Our deepest gratitude to you for showing myriad ways Inkscape can be used to create incredible artworks. These examples are invaluable to helping the project grow and thrive by inspiring and educating artists.

We encourage everyone to take a moment and download any of the artworks you find interesting and explore the objects, nodes, effects, layers, and groups that make up these complex artworks. And if you want to help out the Inkscape Project even more, you can review these artworks by testing the Inkscape 1.4 beta release that will feature this winning artwork here.

Finally, we'd like to extend a big thank you to all of the community members ― more than 250 of you! ― who cast votes in the initial round and selected the top finalists as well as the 23 Inkscape contributors served as the final round of judges for the 1.4 About Screen Contest.

If you’re interested in getting started with or better at using Inkscape check out this month’s challenge.

Thanks to all of you for helping Inkscape continue to grow. 

 Draw freely.

Announcing the About Screen Contest for Inkscape 1.4! Calling all artists! Each new version of Inkscape, we run a fun contest inviting all seasoned Inkscape artists and newcomers to participate in the "About Screen" contest. The About Screen is the image that you see when you click on Help → About in Inkscape to find more information about the version of the program installed on your device.

This release the topic is "GROWTH". This could be interpreted in many ways! Trees, hair, and grass grow. Children grow. How have you grown as an artist this year? How has the Inkscape project grown? How have the benefits of free software "grown" in your mind?

We are so excited to see what great art is submitted this year and excited to have artists be a part of it!

Keep in mind that the About Screen Contest is about much more than the About Screen. Submitted contest artwork is not only shared with the entire inkscape community, but is often featured in other places to help the project!

Entering the contest as an artist and/or voting for your favorites is a great way to help the Inkscape project continue to thrive! Each and every submission also helps us test the newest version of Inkscape.

Learn more about the contest here

Draw Freely.

Inkscape’s involvement in Google’s Summer of Code (GSoC) program is one of the ways the project helps to advance both learning and new and improved features in the program. We’re excited to be taking part in GSoC once more in 2024!

For more information on the timeline and details for applying to collaborate with Inkscape this year, head to our project page on Google's Summer of Code website.

If you’re curious to know more about what some of Inkscape’s GSoC students accomplished in 2023, keep reading!

Customize the appearance of your Canvas Controls

GSoC 2023 Inkscape student Sanidhya Singh was a sophomore undergraduate student in Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), India.

Sanidhya spent the summer working on developing a customizable appearance for canvas controls under the mentorship of Inkscape core developer Marc Jeanmougin.

What are these canvas controls, you ask? If you’ve drawn a shape using the Pen tool and tried to later edit it using the Node Tool, you might have noticed the circular (or square) handles Inkscape provides to manipulate and transform the shape. These are called "canvas controls" or more commonly "node handles". The style of these controls has been the same since at least Inkscape 0.48, and was in need of a refresh – one that would enable the user to have more flexibility in changing the style. Sanidhya stripped out the old handle styling part and replaced it with an easily editable CSS file, so that users can now change styles by just editing the file. This also enabled better default colors for the controls which will hopefully land in Inkscape 1.4.

You can read more about Sanidhya's work.

Preparing behind the scenes for GTK4 Migration

GSoC 2023 student Vaibhav Malik is from New Delhi, India. Once again, he joined Inkscape devs who have been putting a lot of work into the GTK4 migration. GTK is the user interface toolkit Inkscape uses to draw things like text boxes, buttons, etc. on the screen. Inkscape currently uses GTK3 which is version 3 of the toolkit. The migration to the latest version of the toolkit - GTK4, is what Vaibhav worked on under the mentorship of Inkscape core developer Tavmjong Bah (Tav).

Vaibhav's changes are mostly under-the-hood changes so that Inkscape works as expected with GTK4. One noticeable user-facing change is the addition of popovers for smaller screens. Below a particular window size, Inkscape will automatically adjust the items in the toolbar so that they're still usable on a smaller screen!

You can read more about Vaibhav’s work.

Collaborating with Inkscape developers is a learning experience and helps our free and open source program to advance for all Inkscape users.

Reach out, ask questions and get involved with our global team of volunteer contributors!

Draw Freely.

The project has received multiple requests for confirmation from creators, asking us whether we have been reaching out to them about collaborations / partnerships. They have been approached by someone who used the name “Inkscape PhotoEditor,” which does not exist. This is not us. Any official invitations to collaborate from the project will be listed prominently on our website (i.e. here).

The first minor release since Inkscape 1.4 is here!

No worries, you didn't miss 1.4.1! Due to a signficant bug that was only discovered shortly before its planned release, 1.4.1 has been merged with 1.4.2. 

With lots of fixes, some smaller improvements and even a few new features around file format support, we believe it was well worth the wait.

Here's a summary of what to expect from the new release:

• A new splash screen, providing a visual cue while Inkscape loads in the background
• Initial support for importing Vectornator / Linearity Curve files
• A new extension to Clean up Paths
• Substantially improved Affinity Designer files (.afdesign) import
• 20 crash/freeze fixes, many of which affected PDF import
• more than 50 other bug fixes and small improvements, including improvements to Boolean operations, layer selection, minimal window width and restoration of Spray tool buttons' functionality
• and 15 updated translations!

For more detailed information on the changes in version 1.4.2 available in the release notes.

Again, thanks to all Inkscape users and contributors for their support in identifying and flagging these critical issues for us through sending bug reports for our volunteer developers to examine and solve.

Should you experience an issue while using Inkscape, please let us know! We've put together a step-by-step video to help you post your first bug reports on Gitlab.

Built with the power of a team of mostly volunteers, this open source vector graphics editor represents the combined efforts, passion and work of many hearts and hands from around the world, ensuring that Inkscape remains available free for everyone to download and enjoy.

If you'd like to contribute to the project, you are more than welcome in our project's global community! You'll find the list of ways to connect with us here.

You can also help Inkscape to stay alive and evolve by making a donation.

Get Inkscape 1.4.2 for Linux, Windows or macOS!

Draw Freely.

For the past few days, 7 Inkscape Members met up in Frankfurt, Germany to collaborate on various projects and get to know each other.

We were especially delighted to have two InkStitch maintainers, a major downstream project of Inkscape, join us. This way, we got to learn about the struggles and worries of projects using Inkscape better, and even built a new capability for extensions to interact with Inkscape during the event.

Marc, our release manager, cleared out our merge request backlog, reviewing and merging various contributions. He also set up a new web-based translation service, so that translators don't have to learn how to use git, and we hopefully see better Inkscape translations in many languages. He also collaborated with Vaibhav on getting the handles behave well when editing Text to Path.

Jonathan, extensions maintainer, enabled Inkscape to tell extensions in real-time about changes in the document (merge request), and even update the document in return. The new system works on all major platforms. This feature was requested by our InkStitch friends, who will use it to build a preview of the stitch pattern while the user is working on the document. Variations of this feature were often requested by extension authors, so we're excited what the community will use it for!

Tav was working on delivering color font support, and helped Martin and Vaibhav with a wide variety of text-related problems.

Martin wasn't able to attend in-person, but did join via Video Chat to work on PDF support and help answering questions with other people in Frankfurt. He got up at 3am his time to attend!

Ravi is one of our GSoC students from 2024, and we're happy that we got to know him better & to integrate him into our team! He is still working on the node-based filter editor, his GSoC project (merge request), and is hopefully finished soon.

Vaibhav also is a former GSoC student, but is contributing regularly since. He is currently working on improving Text on Path (merge request). Thanks to his work during the Summit, Text on Path now loops around on closed paths (an SVG2 feature)  and has correct and intuitive handle movement.

Kaalleen, InkStitch maintainer, helped us understand their packaging process and helped shape the direction of development on the extensions environment. Apart from that, she worked on various InkStitch issues, including support for long-arm quilting machines. Also, she gifted all of us beautiful bags with the 1.4 About screen stitched on (she also has a tutorial for this on the InkStitch website).

The beautiful embroidery Kaalleen gifted to the other participants (from the InkStitch Website).

After 3 days full of coding and enlightening conversations, we now take home with new ideas in our luggage, and look forward to the next meeting - May 2025 in Nuremberg, just before LGM.

The 7 participants of the Frankfurt Summit.

November 6, 2024, marks the end of the 20th anniversary year for the Inkscape project, and the beginning of a new decade of adventure. There were a few milestones this past year, among them an informal global celebration, a bug-fix program, an About Screen Contest, an Inkscape Summit, a summer of code, and the launch of version 1.4.

Here’s a brief look at some of those milestones:

Bringing contributors from around the world together in real time online

Looking back over the past year, our 20th anniversary got off to an active start with an online anniversary party in November 2023, where users and contributors gathered over the span of several time zones to welcome guests who shared their passion for Inkscape, their art, and discussed how and why they contribute to the project. The world showed up to hang out and filled us all with pride to be part of this open source community.

From there, things moved quickly with preparations for version 1.4 and all the elements that come together before the annual version release.

Inkscape’s 1.4 About Screen Contest

Preparations for the popular About Screen Contest began early in the year, setting up the voting space and rallying contributors to organize the promotion and review of contest entries. The winning entry was featured in the 1.4 release that launched in the Fall of 2024. If you’re curious about the contest, feel free to check out the rules and history of this tradition.

Inkscape’s Contributor Blog

Some of our developers, especially those who are paid by the project (i.e. from your donations), publish articles about their work in our Contributor Blog, which can be found on the web site under the News tab. Among the blog posts include ones the progress made on our Bug Accelerator program, the Adobe Illustrator File import project, and the GTK4 migration work. You can find the posts through to Spring 2024 online.

Inkscape Summit 2024 in Rennes, France!

We had a great Inkscape Summit in Rennes, France, in May 2024. Our three-day meeting was well attended and offered an opportunity for developers and a couple of other contributors to meet, work, and discuss the future of the project. A member of the SFC was in attendance and participants had a chance to exchange with a representative from the Open Document Project, too, on open source projects.

Learning to Code through Contributing to Inkscape

Inkscape developers continued the longstanding tradition of participating in the Google Summer of Code (GSOC) program, which enables people new to open source projects and students to learn about software development and gain experience within a project environment. Several Inkscape developers mentored three students in 2024, one of whom is still working hard. If you’re curious to know what these students accomplished, their code journeys can be found on the GSOC site.

When it comes to the software itself, Inkscape has been embarking on big changes that will span a couple of future versions, specifically the transition to GTK4. This year marked a big milestone as the master branch was successfully migrated to the new code base. Also in the works is the future of CMYK color inside of Inkscape, though there is no final date set yet for integrating a system.

Inkscape Monthly Art Challenges

This past year has seen regular monthly Inkscape Challenges in the forum, posted on social media channels, to encourage Inkscape artists to share their work and learn new skills. From easy to intermediate projects to challenge your Inkscape skills, there’s something for everyone who is curious to learn. These challenges, along with the many opportunities to learn and collaborate within the project, have helped to bring new contributors to the table, too. You’ll find plenty of art to enjoy in the project’s forums!

Looking at Possible Futures for the Project

In October, an informal discussion was held among contributors to look at the possibilities of taking the  project in a new direction in the future. As with some other open source projects in the past, Inkscape is seeking to grow and explore possible futures, including being an independent organization. While there are no immediate plans to move from SFC, the discussion led to contributors beginning to imagine what Inkscape might look like three years down the road. At 21, it’s time to consider the possible bright futures ahead.

For now, we would like to say a big thank you to all of you, Inkscape users, contributors, and supporters. It’s in working together that this software program continues to develop and grow.

Curious to know what contributing to Inkscape might bring to your world? Get in touch!

In the meantime, enjoy using Inkscape, a professional quality vector graphics software on your Linux, Mac OS X and / or Windows desktop computers.

Draw Freely.

On November 18, 2023, the Inkscape project celebrated its 20th anniversary.

The anniversary celebration was an online get-together of Inkscape users and contributors.

This was an initiative by the Vectors team and the intention was to bring Inkscape users and contributors together to celebrate 20 years of Inkscape.

Inkscape is used by people around the world. To accommodate that, two sessions were organized in different time zones. The first session was scheduled at 12:00 UTC for folks from regions like Eastern North America, Europe, India, & Indonesia. The second session started at 18:00 UTC for other regions, including Oceania.

The attendees were invited to share their approximate location in the world so that we could “map” the Inkscape community that came together to celebrate the anniversary. The interactive map can be viewed online. It is a beautiful souvenir of Inkscape’s global reach.

The larger Inkscape community also sent birthday wishes which were read during the sessions. An interactive slideshow of the wishes is available on Gitlab.

These sessions featured interviews from people in the Inkscape community. The interviewers asked guests about their Inkscape journey, how they discovered Inkscape, what they liked most about using Inkscape, among other questions. Guests answered that they use Inkscape for various things, some of them being designing board games, a children’s book for their loved ones, doing professional design work. One guest said they loved the feeling of freedom when designing with Inkscape. Another guest wanted a free vector graphics application, they stumbled upon Inkscape and found a bug. After reporting it, they ended up eventually contributing translations for their language.

After the interview ended, the room was opened to the chat so that people could ask the guests questions. The sessions went well over time as those in attendance wanted to keep the great Inkscape party going.

You can get involved with the Inkscape project, too, and help make the next 20 years even greater!

Después de meses de espera, finalmente estamos listos para abrir la última versión de Inkscape... conozcan la 1.4, la edición Geek, donde reinan la accesibilidad y la personalización.

Los desarrolladores del proyecto Inkscape, la mayoría de ellos colaboradores voluntarios de países de todo el mundo, han estado trabajando entre bastidores en nuevas funciones, mejorando las actuales, corrigiendo errores y preparando el terreno para la llegada de GTK 4.

Analicemos algunas de las características nuevas y mejoradas que permiten una mayor personalización y una mejor accesibilidad en Inkscape de una manera interesante y técnica. Usuarios avanzados de Inkscape, ¡esta es para ustedes!

Diálogo de galería de filtros 

El cuadro de diálogo Galería de filtros de Inkscape 1.4 es el nuevo punto de entrada al mundo de los filtros. Diríjase al menú Filtros para encontrar sus favoritos más fácilmente, con vistas previas por categoría o escribiendo palabras clave en la barra de búsqueda. Esto incluye los filtros personalizados que haya añadido; búsquelos en la categoría Personal. Las funciones de accesibilidad incluyen la capacidad de cambiar el tamaño de la vista previa de las miniaturas.

Rejillas modulares

Para quienes buscan lo último en simetría y precisión, los nuevos botones de selección de cuadrículas les resultarán una forma más rápida y visual de identificar la cuadrícula de su elección. En el caso de las nuevas cuadrículas modulares, puede ajustar muchos parámetros de cuadrícula por separado, desde la altura y el ancho hasta los espacios horizontales y verticales, incluidos los ajustes en el nivel del módulo de cuadrícula (rectángulo). Habilite esta opción en las propiedades del documento.

Diálogo de muestras

El cuadro de diálogo Muestras de Inkscape tiene un nuevo diseño. Ahora incluye un menú desplegable con vista previa de las paletas de colores. Puede visualizarlas con los nombres de los colores en una lista o en cuadrículas. Los usuarios avanzados también pueden aumentar el tamaño de los mosaicos. Busque sus muestras personalizadas o las de sus clientes. Importe paletas desde el cuadro de diálogo, incluidas las de Adobe Color Book que utilizan colores CIELAB, aunque la compatibilidad con las que utilizan CMYK sigue siendo limitada por ahora. Se ha mejorado la transición de CMYK a RGB.

Editor de tipografías SVG

Para aquellos a los que les gustan las fuentes, Inkscape 1.4 es su nueva herramienta de personalización. Encontrarán una ruta más sencilla a los botones para ordenar glifos y eliminar pares. ¡La personalización más potente en su máxima expresión en Inkscape!

Navegador de tipografías unificado

Inkscape está probando una vista previa unificada del navegador de fuentes. Active esta función en Preferencias y reinicie la aplicación. Podrá acceder a vistas previas visuales de fuentes con ajustes como, por ejemplo, agregar su propio texto de muestra. Verifique las características particulares de las fuentes buscando fuentes por tipo de colección. Haga clic en la que desee y observe cómo se aplica a su texto.

Tiradores personalizables

Verá que, en Inkscape 1.4, los controladores del lienzo se pueden personalizar en cuanto a tamaño, color, ancho del trazo, contorno y opacidad. Esto se actualizará en tiempo real en Inkscape cuando se haya guardado el archivo CSS.

Constructor de formas

Ahora puede realizar ediciones rápidas en imágenes rasterizadas (píxeles) dentro de Inkscape con la herramienta Constructor de formas. Cargue una imagen y seleccione las secciones que desea aislar. Elíjalas con el constructor de formas para recortarlas. Tenga en cuenta que para editarlas, deberá liberar el recorte y luego desvincular el clon. Esta herramienta es útil para una solución rápida, aislando una o varias partes de una imagen rápidamente.

Diálogo de propiedades de objeto

A partir de Inkscape 1.4, los cuadros de diálogo Atributos de objeto y Propiedades de objeto se han agrupado en uno solo. En este único lugar, puede cambiar las distintas propiedades de los objetos, incluidas las rotaciones y las esquinas.

Actualizaciones de importación y exportación

Si utiliza Inkscape para crear y publicar documentos, le alegrará saber que ahora puede agregar vínculos de una página a otra dentro de un documento PDF (piense en una tabla de contenidos).

Además, Inkscape 1.4 ahora puede abrir archivos de Affinity Designer, lo que agrega más versatilidad al programa.

Conjuntos de iconos

Demos la bienvenida a Dash, el último conjunto de iconos accesible en Inkscape. Para aquellos a quienes les gusta personalizar, apreciarán este conjunto adicional de más de 500 iconos para explorar. Estos incluyen cursores, versiones escalables y simbólicas, que funcionan en temas claros y oscuros.

Esto concluye nuestro breve recorrido por algunas de las principales características incluidas en Inkscape 1.4. Para obtener más información, las Notas de la versión de Inkscape 1.4 están actualizadas con información sobre todos los cambios incluidos en esta edición.

¡Descargue Inkscape 1.4 para Linux, Windows o macOS!

Si tiene preguntas para nosotros, diríjase a nuestro sitio web y busque nuestra comunidad online, donde también podrá encontrar maneras de involucrarse con el projecto.

Mientras tanto,
  Dibuje en libertad.

We had a great Inkscape Summit in Rennes, France. Our three-day meeting was hosted by long-time Inkscaper's Elisa and Cédric in their school of design Activ.design

Five Inkscaper's travelled to the event (Marc, Mikekov, Adam Belis, S-Rafael, and Tav). Two more were present via video (Martin and René). Jonathon dropped in occasionally. And our hosts hung out with us when they weren't too busy preparing for LGM (Libre Graphics Meeting). In previous years we called these events "Hackfests", but have decided in order to be more inclusive to non-programmers and encourage greater partipation these events will be known as "Inkscape Summits".

These important events give the contributors of Inkscape a place where they can get some work done. Rafael [pictured left] is seen here working on some graphic user interface code at the event space. Mike, Adam, and Rafael spent a lot of time discussing and implementing UX designs. Marc did lots of merges, especially forward porting. We had great discussions on the future of Inkscape, including a plan for an improved Live Path Effects system (more of a Live Object system), better testing, etc..

During breaks and after the day, the contributors will go out for a meal and socialise. Rafael, Adam, Mikekov, Tav and Marc [pictured right] sit at a restaurant near the event space for lunch and get to know each other better.

All of these activities are funded by the Inkscape project, who provides travel and event expenses and run by one of the team. This is all funded by our kind donors who help the project cover the costs to run these important events. So a big thank you to all of you, you know who you are!

After the Inkscape Summit event, everyone was able to participate in the Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) which happened directly afterwards. We will often try and organise our own physical meetings along side another conference or event. Tav [pictured left] is seen talking to other LGM attendees who will be contributors to other Free Software projects such as Blender, Krita, Penpot, etc. While smaller than in the past, there were still lots of great talks including talks on color, type, animation, and chocolate.

Meeting with the wider community of Free Software contributors helps us stay up to date with what's happening in the wider industry as well as meeting with some pretty cool people who help run a lot of the software which our users also depend upon. Big thanks for the organisers of LGM for running the event this year, which is the first in person event since Covid.

See you all next time!

We have a winner! Congratulations to the winning entry by artist Inkonic for their artwork "Inkscape's Path–Artist's Blossom". 

The theme this year was "Growth" and Inkonic's winning artwork depicted this wonderfully with branches and leaves growing directly out of the work of artists' hands using artists' tools ― literally drawing themselves and their worlds into existence and making them grow. Congratulations to Inkonic ― and thank you for helping Inkscape continue to grow!

We would also like to thank all of the artists who submitted artwork for the contest. Our deepest gratitude to you for showing myriad ways Inkscape can be used to create incredible artworks. These examples are invaluable to helping the project grow and thrive by inspiring and educating artists.

We encourage everyone to take a moment and download any of the artworks you find interesting and explore the objects, nodes, effects, layers, and groups that make up these complex artworks. And if you want to help out the Inkscape Project even more, you can review these artworks by testing the Inkscape 1.4 beta release that will feature this winning artwork here.

Finally, we'd like to extend a big thank you to all of the community members ― more than 250 of you! ― who cast votes in the initial round and selected the top finalists as well as the 23 Inkscape contributors served as the final round of judges for the 1.4 About Screen Contest.

If you’re interested in getting started with or better at using Inkscape check out this month’s challenge.

Thanks to all of you for helping Inkscape continue to grow. 

 Draw freely.

Announcing the About Screen Contest for Inkscape 1.4! Calling all artists! Each new version of Inkscape, we run a fun contest inviting all seasoned Inkscape artists and newcomers to participate in the "About Screen" contest. The About Screen is the image that you see when you click on Help → About in Inkscape to find more information about the version of the program installed on your device.

This release the topic is "GROWTH". This could be interpreted in many ways! Trees, hair, and grass grow. Children grow. How have you grown as an artist this year? How has the Inkscape project grown? How have the benefits of free software "grown" in your mind?

We are so excited to see what great art is submitted this year and excited to have artists be a part of it!

Keep in mind that the About Screen Contest is about much more than the About Screen. Submitted contest artwork is not only shared with the entire inkscape community, but is often featured in other places to help the project!

Entering the contest as an artist and/or voting for your favorites is a great way to help the Inkscape project continue to thrive! Each and every submission also helps us test the newest version of Inkscape.

Learn more about the contest here

Draw Freely.

Inkscape’s involvement in Google’s Summer of Code (GSoC) program is one of the ways the project helps to advance both learning and new and improved features in the program. We’re excited to be taking part in GSoC once more in 2024!

For more information on the timeline and details for applying to collaborate with Inkscape this year, head to our project page on Google's Summer of Code website.

If you’re curious to know more about what some of Inkscape’s GSoC students accomplished in 2023, keep reading!

Customize the appearance of your Canvas Controls

GSoC 2023 Inkscape student Sanidhya Singh was a sophomore undergraduate student in Computer Science and Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (IIT Roorkee), India.

Sanidhya spent the summer working on developing a customizable appearance for canvas controls under the mentorship of Inkscape core developer Marc Jeanmougin.

What are these canvas controls, you ask? If you’ve drawn a shape using the Pen tool and tried to later edit it using the Node Tool, you might have noticed the circular (or square) handles Inkscape provides to manipulate and transform the shape. These are called "canvas controls" or more commonly "node handles". The style of these controls has been the same since at least Inkscape 0.48, and was in need of a refresh – one that would enable the user to have more flexibility in changing the style. Sanidhya stripped out the old handle styling part and replaced it with an easily editable CSS file, so that users can now change styles by just editing the file. This also enabled better default colors for the controls which will hopefully land in Inkscape 1.4.

You can read more about Sanidhya's work.

Preparing behind the scenes for GTK4 Migration

GSoC 2023 student Vaibhav Malik is from New Delhi, India. Once again, he joined Inkscape devs who have been putting a lot of work into the GTK4 migration. GTK is the user interface toolkit Inkscape uses to draw things like text boxes, buttons, etc. on the screen. Inkscape currently uses GTK3 which is version 3 of the toolkit. The migration to the latest version of the toolkit - GTK4, is what Vaibhav worked on under the mentorship of Inkscape core developer Tavmjong Bah (Tav).

Vaibhav's changes are mostly under-the-hood changes so that Inkscape works as expected with GTK4. One noticeable user-facing change is the addition of popovers for smaller screens. Below a particular window size, Inkscape will automatically adjust the items in the toolbar so that they're still usable on a smaller screen!

You can read more about Vaibhav’s work.

Collaborating with Inkscape developers is a learning experience and helps our free and open source program to advance for all Inkscape users.

Reach out, ask questions and get involved with our global team of volunteer contributors!

Draw Freely.

The project has received multiple requests for confirmation from creators, asking us whether we have been reaching out to them about collaborations / partnerships. They have been approached by someone who used the name “Inkscape PhotoEditor,” which does not exist. This is not us. Any official invitations to collaborate from the project will be listed prominently on our website (i.e. here).