Chapter 9. Attributes

Inkscape » Attributes

Table of Contents

An object has attributes such as color and line style. An attribute can apply to the Fill or to the Stroke of the object. The Fill refers to how the area inside an object's boundary path is painted while the Stroke refers to the path itself. The Fill or Stroke (Stroke paint) can be a single color, a Gradient of colors, a Pattern, or nothing at all. With the exception of a few small differences, Fill and Stroke paint have the same properties and are treated together in the following discussion. A Stroke can have additional attributes such as width, dash pattern, and arrow type (Stroke style). These are treated in a separate section.

Text can be given the same attributes as other objects with a few small differences: Individual letters can be given different solid colors, but Gradients and Patterns must be assigned to an entire text object.

There are a number of ways to change attributes:

Fill and Stroke dialog: Three tabs in the dialog allow the setting of the Fill, Stroke paint, and Stroke style. At the very bottom of the dialog is a slider and entry box for the Master opacity to set the overall opacity (or transparency) of an object.
Palette: To change Fill and Stroke paint colors.
Swatches dialog: To change Fill and Stroke paint colors (View → Swatches... (Shift+Ctrl+W)).
Style Indicator menu (pops up when a bar in the Style Indicator is Right Mouse Clicked). An entry box in the Style Indicator can be used to set an object's opacity.
Dropper Tool: To select Fill and Stroke paint colors from another object.
Gradient Tool: To create and modify Gradients.
Edit → Paste Style (Shift+Ctrl+V) command: To copy attributes from one object to another. Copy the source object (Edit → Copy (Ctrl+C)), then select the target object and use the Edit → Paste Style (Shift+Ctrl+V) command.
XML Editor: Useful to access attributes defined in the SVG standard but are not yet directly accessible through the Inkscape interface.


Text in a Shape		Fill and Stroke Paint