Calligraphy Tool in Inkscape

[sstehman]

I've been experimenting with the calligraphy tool and maybe someone can give me a tip on what I might be doing wrong. When I choose calligraphy and then draw on the screen, the image does not appear (there is no fill and opacity is set to 0). When changing to View - Outline, the image can then be seen and a fill color or line style can be added, which then allows me to see it in the View - Normal mode. By default, Opacity is apparently at 0%, which means you cannot see what you are placing on the canvas in "View - normal" mode. Seems awkward to me. Maybe there is a step I am missing. Playing around with it after adding fill gave the ability to do some interesting designs moving nodes around, but I'm not please with the beginning steps of not being able to easily get it out of the opacity setting in the beginning.

Hope this makes sense. If anyone can give me some insight and figured this out, I'd appreciate learning your steps.

[lkc]

Hmmm...I've never had that problem but I looked at the two inkscape versions I currently have which are 0.46 and 0.48.
Both of them have a toolbar that appears at the top and in 0.46 there is a paintbrush icon...
that resets defaults so it might be worth a try if you have that on your version.

calligraphy_reset1.png (74.26 KiB) Viewed 2601 times

[sstehman]

I have version .47 and the paintbrush is not there. I also went to Inkscape Preferences and my settings are Use This Tools Setting. In the setting it shows a the 0. Wonder if it is a flaw in .47? What I found cool about the calligraphy tool was that besides the calligraphy effect, you can draw a different type of object and then pull the nodes to get some interesting effects. What is strange is how it is drawing for me initially.

Here is my toolbar.

[sstehman]

Searched the web and found this answer and it seems to work. The first time, you must draw a line, go to View - Outline. Select the object and add a fill (be sure to change opacity higher than 0). I made mine 100. Then go to Inkscape Preferences and change the setting for the Calligraphy feature to "last used setting". If I use the "Tools Own selection" it resets back to 0 opacity, which appears to be the problem. Works fine now.

[lkc]

I'm glad you found an answer...I've have not had that happen with the versions I've used. 0.48 has the same menu as you show and it allows for a lot more diversity than 0.46. I've used the calligraphy tool to draw my own letters and it's fun to use with a drawing pad like a wacom tablet, too.