Some time ago some lovely person on the inkscape channel suggested the following fix to my desire to have inkscape default to landscape, full screen when I create a new document. It's become such second nature to me now I don't even think about.
But as I passed this tip on to someone today - it occurred to me it might be worth a wee blog post. Hope someone else out there finds this useful :)
Note: Make a copy of default.svg before embarking on this jiggery pokery - in case reverting to factory settings is required.
So - Find Inkscape's default.svg template... for me this is here:
me@mycomputer: /usr/share/inkscape/templates/
I then need to run Inkscape with the sudo command - no idea how that works for other systems - sorry! ;)
me@mycomputer: sudo inkscape default.svg
Voila! Inkscape opens.
Maximise the window. Inkscape defaults to a tiny window - [which is a good thing. Defaulting to a large window on a tiny screen would be tres annointment. (very annoying) - although I do wonder if it could somehow ask the system what the screen size is and draw accordingly... but is probably easier to just let the user tweak as needed]
Then Open Document Properties (Shift-Control-D) or find it under the File Menu. Change Page Orientation to Landscape and whatever else you like - perhaps the Grids or Snap Points need tweaking?
Once done, close the Document Properties dialog.
Hit 5 to Zoom Page to fit window.
(or View->Zoom->Page, or just click
on the tool bar.)
Tweak anything else ... then Save and Quit Inkscape. Next time the program opens, it should default to the settings as configured.
Update: The same approach works if you want to turn off the page border.
Comments
11 comments postedThis was really helpful and simply explained! Thanks!
On windows 7 the path to 'default.svg' is:
'C:\Program Files (x86)\Inkscape\share\templates'
Managed to get my mate away from his Illustrator dependency. Just wandered if you now of a way to save a picture as clip art that you can easily bring in repeatedly. My mate creates patterns for leather ware and it would be handy if he could create buckles or studs of various sizes and then save them as presets, that he could then insert when required.
Thank you once again, much appreciation.
Dan
You're welcome :)
To the best of my knowledge, there isn't a way to do this with inkscape itself, but it's easy to manage directly with your operating system file manager.
I create a folder (or directory) of assets and import the file I want directly into the file I'm using.
Or if I have a single SVG file with a lot of elements in it, I'll open it, copy the element I need and just paste that into the new file.
However having access to a library of 'parts' is something that would be quite useful I think. Perhaps put in a request at launchpad?
cheers
Donna
Very Handy - Thanks!
Too bad there's no "Set as default" button, though.
This is useful, thanks.
Any idea how to add a new set page size to the list? I can't seem to find anywhere to edit that list!
Hey Dan!
Glad you found this useful :)
To a new page size or template to the file -> new list simply save your new SVG to the templates folder.
This is how I did it in four simple steps
1. create new template file
2. save to desktop
3. right click on the desktop, choose open in terminal
4. sudo cp myNewTemplate.svg /usr/share/inkscape/templates
Then just open inkscape - and voila - there it is in your file -> new menu.
Note - you will need to restart inkscape to see the new template in the menu.
I love it nice and easy. you can even set things like grid to show!!!! thank u!!
I've been using Inkscape for a few years now and it's such a pain to change the layout with every new file. This is great!
Glad you found it useful :)
I just started using inkscape and the default document was not to my liking. I found your page from a quick google search, and appreciate the helpful tips.
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