This overview of the new features of Inkscape 1.3 that make working with patterns easier is especially helpful if you have used previous versions of Inkscape, and shows how easy many adjustments can be in Inkscape now: Inkscape 1.3 is awesome on so many layers
Toolbox icon to bring up Pages tool is a bottom of Tool box (yellow arrow in this image). Then Tool Control Bar with additional page tools will show up at top (in yellow circled area). Page navigation tools in status bar are in lower right area (also circled in yellow).
This image shows the function of the page toolbox control bar icons:
Pages have two borders you may notice:
Black box around page with square controls at each corner: This designates the size area of the page, and corners can be dragged to change page size.
Blue box inside page with circle controls on each side: This blue box represents the area of the page inside the margins. Setting up margins is not relevant to our needs for projecting, but knowing what the blue box is can be helpful so you can drag the edges of blue margin box right to edge of page if you want to move it out the way.
These controls can only be accessed / changed, when Pages tool is activated (last item in toolbox, see yellow arrow in first pic at top of this page).
First and easiest method is to use the menus View > Display Mode > Enhance Thin Lines. This makes a noticeable difference, and may be all you need for patterns that don’t have projector files with thicker lines.
Second method is to use the Stroke options and panel. When specific size layer is selected, each can be made with a different colour or thickness depending on your preference. The steps to change layer line style are in section 8.0 How to access size layers, and change layer colour/thickness (scroll down to last part).
To proceed with the steps in the next sections you have to be able to select entire pieces, in your pattern file, using the Select tool (mouse arrow icon).
On some patterns, you can uncheck layers you don’t need and then entire pieces can be selected without further steps.
For many patterns a few more steps are needed before selecting your entire pattern piece will work. Try each of these actions, until selecting works to choose individual pattern pieces so you can move them:
Hide layers that are not needed to be selected/seen (section 8.0)
Unlock layers that may be locked, then pieces in that layer can be selected (section 8.0)
Check status bar for information about groups. Choose in menus Objects > Ungroup to ungroup objects so each can be selected individually. Keep ungrouping until status bar says “No groups” (section 10.0)
If selecting only selects a part of pattern piece, then shift select all the objects that make up the pattern piece, and then choose in menus Objects > Group (section 10.0)
If object or paths still cannot be selected, it is likely that the pattern is not actually digitally drawn as vectors, instead it is a static image of the file, and can’t be manipulated in a vector program. You will need to retrace the lines using the pen/bezier tool which is a fairly quick process. A link to Marta’s video tutorial for this is in section 15.0.
11.2 How to select objects, move and rotate pattern pieces
11.3 Toolbar shortcuts to rotate and mirror pieces:
When an object is selected the top Tool Control Bar will show these icons – the circle arrow icons are for rotating, and the side-to-side and up-down arrow icons are for flipping/mirroring objects.
For readers who are already have experience cutting using Adobe with their computer and projector, you can now proceed to Part B.
If you are new to cutting with a projected pattern, this is a good time, to start cutting a first small pattern, and putting in practice the information just learned in the previous sections.
Open layers panel (section 8.0) and select the size you want to cut
In the status bar, enter your calibration zoom (type in the Z box), and rotate pieces if needed so longest side of pattern piece is aligned with longest side of projection (type 90 in the R box in bottom right status bar to rotate in clockwise direction). (Steps to use zoom and rotate in status bar are in section 6.0)
Now your pattern should look something like this on your screen, and on your projection:
(if you want to follow along with this pattern, this is the free Emilie pattern from Jalie.com).
Now you can cut!
The most common and simplest way to cut on projector is one piece at at time.
Cut one piece, then scroll projection, so that next piece is where you want on fabric, then cut second piece.
To scroll projection, we use keyboard arrow keys, pressing Control at same time, to move pieces across the screen (section 5.0) to move pattern piece where we need it.
Depending on size of table/mat and size of projection area, you will likely need to reposition fabric as well between cuts. Keep grainlne aligned with mat grid line, and projector file will have grainlines in that direction as well, making the task of keeping on grain easier.
If layers panel is in the way when cutting, press the x at the top of layers panel to remove it from the view.
3) Keep cutting with these steps and do the same for all your patterns. Once you feel comfortable with these steps you can move on to the next sections. In particular section 11.0 How to improve visibility of lines and section 12.0 Grouping and Ungrouping Objects will be helpful to get lines to be thicker if needed, and moving objects if you need to (but just scrolling projection in steps above is simpler and quicker in most cases, so it’s fine to stick with that method).
For readers who are already have experience cutting using Adobe with their computer and projector, you can now proceed to Part B.
If you are new to cutting with a projected pattern, this is a good time, to start cutting a first small pattern, and putting in practice the information just learned in the previous sections.
Open layers panel (section 8.0) and select the size you want to cut
In the status bar, enter your calibration zoom (type in the Z box), and rotate pieces if needed so longest side of pattern piece is aligned with longest side of projection (type 90 in the R box in bottom right status bar to rotate in clockwise direction). (Steps to use zoom and rotate in status bar are in section 6.0)
Now your pattern should look something like this on your screen, and on your projection:
(if you want to follow along with this pattern, this is the free Emilie pattern from Jalie.com).
Now you can cut!
The most common and simplest way to cut on projector is one piece at at time.
Cut one piece, then scroll projection, so that next piece is where you want on fabric, then cut second piece.
To scroll projection, we use keyboard arrow keys, pressing Control at same time, to move pieces across the screen (section 5.0) to move pattern piece where we need it.
Depending on size of table/mat and size of projection area, you will likely need to reposition fabric as well between cuts. Keep grainlne aligned with mat grid line, and projector file will have grainlines in that direction as well, making the task of keeping on grain easier.
If layers panel is in the way when cutting, press the x at the top of layers panel to remove it from the view.
3) Keep cutting with these steps and do the same for all your patterns. Once you feel comfortable with these steps you can move on to the next sections. In particular section 11.0 How to improve visibility of lines and section 12.0 Grouping and Ungrouping Objects will be helpful to get lines to be thicker if needed, and moving objects if you need to (but just scrolling projection in steps above is simpler and quicker in most cases, so it’s fine to stick with that method).
In menus View > Fullscreen (all the way at the bottom of the menu list), will remove some of the workspace toolbars and panels, to make more room to view the pattern. To remove additional tools tools to make more room for patterns, remove each of these items in the View > Show/Hide menu that you don’t want to see:
This adjustment to what you want to see or not see in full screen mode will save automatically for the next time, so this step only needs to be done once.
Once you have chosen in the menus the options to remove items in full screen mode, then go back to regular mode, with F11 or in menus View > Fullscreen. Next time you use fullscreen mode, it will be set to remove all the items you removed in full screen mode last time.
You can view layers when in full screen mode, choose in menus Layer > View Layers and Objects. Then Layers tab will appear in docking area on right side of screen.
To close the Layers tab, press the x button at top of Layers and Objects tab.
The docking area may have multiple tabs open that you wish to hide. Click down arrow icon in upper right corner to bring up menu and select Close Panel to close them all at once.
Any docked panels will have to be closed each time you access full screen mode if they are open.
The Menu bar at top cannot be hidden in full screen mode.
In the menus Layer > Layer and Objects will open the Layers panel in the docking area on the right side of the window.
In the Layers panel, when layers are on/visible, there won’t be any icon on the line for that layer, until you hover over it. When you are hovering, you will see the “open eye” icon, which can be clicked to turn it off/make it invisible. When layers are not visible, they will have the closed eye icon on their line in the layers panel.
With shift or control pressed when selecting, multiple layers can be selected at once. With a selection of multiple layers, pressing the eye icon will change visibility of all those layers at once.
When hovering over a layer, the Lock icon will also show next to eye icon. Click Lock icon to make that layer unselectable if needed. That can be useful if you are making changes to one layer, and want to see, but not select a different layer.
There is a bug currently in Inkscape which is preventing the proper importing of layers from two companies: Sinclair Patterns, and Chalk and Notch Patterns. Until this bug is fixed, the steps in this blog post can be used to quickly recreate the layers. (Inkscape has been alerted to this bug and next version should include fix for this.)
To change line colour and thickness for a layer:
Select layer in layer panel (just click on layer name)
Without selecting any lines in the pattern, go straight to menu: Objects > Fill and Stroke…
This will open Fill and Stroke panel, next to Layers panel. Stroke properties are what change line appearance: colour, thickness and style.
Select Stroke Style
Increase stoke width in this panel. 4 or 6 px is usually a good thickness for line visibility
If line is dashed and you want to change to solid line, change this option in “Dashes” section
If desired, you can also select Stroke Paint, and choose a colour in the colour wheel to change line colour
As long as no specific line has been selected in the pattern, and the layer was selected first, then you will see all the lines for selected layers change when you change stroke properties.
WIth the new auto-calibrating softwares available, such as Pattern Projector (which like Inkscape is free), for most people it will be easiest to export from Inkscape any modified file as a PDF and then continue to project from Pattern Projector because the calibration is so easy and almost automatic in that software.
But if you have previous used the manual calibration method with Adobe, then you could change to projecting from Inkscape, and the only change would be to find your calibration zoom in Inkscape. So the following steps assume you have manually calibrated in Adobe, and everything is accurate there. This is not a full calibration that you will be re-doing in Inkscape, it is just adjusting the zoom level for your calibration tool to be accurate in Inkscape.
To calibrate in Inkscape if you have already manually calibrated in Adobe:
Step 1) Begin by using menus to navigate to Edit > Preferences > Interface.
Here you will see this box of options with a ruler and a “zoom correction factor”.
Put the cursor on the right side of this window until arrows show that you can extend the window to be a larger size, then make it almost as wide as your screen, watching the size of the ruler on your projection. After resizing the window, it will look something like this:
Step 2) Now increase or decrease the zoom correction slider or type in the box on the right side of the projected ruler until the zoom correction factor creates a projected ruler that projects at the accurate size on your projection, as measured with your tape measure or grid on mat:
You can change from cm/metric to in/imperial ruler with the drop-down menu option at the right end of the ruler.
This step is easier if you put paper or solid fabric on top of mat, and use a tape measure, otherwise grid on mat adds too many lines to see projected ruler clearly.
If using mat grid, you can move the Inkscape window on the screen until you see projected ruler lines align with mat grid lines, and keep adjusting the zoom correction factor, and ruler location on the screen, until you see good alignment between measurements on the ruler and same distances with grid lines on your mat.
Or you can use a physical ruler or measuring tape to measure the projected ruler, adjusting the zoom correction factor until the projected ruler is accurate.
Adjusting zoom correction factor to be accurate to a distance of at least 20″ / 50cm is recommended.
Step 3) Once the projected ruler measures accurately, close the Preferences window (click X in the top right corner), then that “zoom correction factor” is your calibration zoom. Inkscape now uses this “correct zoom” to be your “1:1 zoom level”, which you can quickly access via menus or even better by just typing the number 1.
When you type the keyboard shortcut of 1, you will then see the zoom level on the Z box in the status bar on the bottom right change to be your “correct zoom”/”calibration zoom”.
Step 4) Also open the Squares and Rectangles Calibration Tool in Inkscape to further confirm your “1:1 correct zoom” is fully accurate.
Open the calibration tool on a regular basis to determine or confirm that the calibration zoom remains accurate. Here are the tools in SVG format to directly open them in Inkscape (or you can import the PDF versions from the Setup and Calibration guide). Remember to press 1 each time to set your zoom to the 100% / 1:1 zoom correction factor.
Tip for downloading SVG files: Since these are SVG files liked above, they will not open like a regular PDF. Depending on your browser they may open like a text file. Look for the Download icon, at the top of the browser so the file goes to your Downloads folder. Then go to Inkscape, and choose in the menus File > Open and navigate to the Downloads folder to find it and open it. (You can then save it to a different location if you like.)
Step 5) Now you are calibrated and can project all your patterns at accurate scale with the “1” shortcut
As with calibrating in Adobe, it is important to remember that all PDFs have the same scale (unless they are corrupted). This feature of PDFs is why PDF patterns are always printed at 100% scale, no matter the pattern designer, or page format. The same concept applies when projecting, all pdfs will project at an accurate scale if they are projected at your calibration zoom, no matter the pattern designer, as long as your calibration is accurate.
Think of the 1 shortcut as “put my zoom to 100%”.
When you use the 1 shortcut, you will see Z box in bottom right corner change to the Zoom Correction factor scale level, but rounded to nearest whole number.
***Measuring the projected test square each time you cut is always recommended as a double check that no error has crept in along the way.***
