• Introduction
• Manual has moved!
• Why use Inkscape?
• Professional Software
• About this Book
• Installing Inkscape
• Windows
• Mac OS X
• Gnu/Linux
• Getting Around in Inkscape
• Interface
• Managing the Workspace
• Drawing with Geometrical Shapes
• Ways of Drawing with Inkscape
• Shape Tools
• The Selector Tool
• Squares and Rectangles
• Circles, Ellipses and Arcs
• Stars and Polygons
• Spirals
• 3D-Boxes
• Freehand Drawing
• Freehand Drawing
• The Pencil Tool
• The Pen Tool
• The Calligraphy Tool
• Boolean Operations
• About Nodes
• Editing Paths
• Stacking Order
• Align and Distribute
• The Node Tool
• Tracing an Image
• The Tweak Tool
• Color
• Colors
• The Color Palette
• The Fill And Stroke Dialog
• Custom Colors
• Copying a Color
• Creating Gradients
• Creating a Mesh Gradient
• Using Patterns
• Modifying Patterns
• Creating Custom Patterns
• Strokes
• Markers
• Ordering Markers, Stroke and Fill
• Customizing Markers
• Text
• Text
• Writing Text
• Styling Text
• Changing Text Color
• Moving and Rotating Letters
• Putting Text on a Path
• Flowing Text into a Frame
• Creating Custom Fonts
• Advanced Techniques
• Beyond the Basics
• Saving Your Work
• Exporting a PDF File
• Exporting a PNG File
• Exporting to other File Formats
• Importing Pictures into a Document
• Importing other File Formats
• Copying and Duplicating Objects
• Cloning Objects
• Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts
• Clipping and Masking
• Filters
• Extensions
• Live Path Effects
• Where to Go from Here
• Test Chapter (for trying out styling)

Align and Distribute

[Ctrl + Shift + A]

This dialog offers invaluable help. You can use it to align nodes and objects vertically or horizontally, or to distribute them at equal distances.

To use it for aligning nodes:

• 1. Open the dialog by clicking on its icon in the command bar to the right of the canvas.
• 2. Switch to Node tool.
• 3. Select a couple of nodes.
• 4. Click on the node alignment button of your choice. The alignment will be applied immediately.

For aligning objects:

• 1. Open the dialog
• 2. Switch to Select tool.
• 3. Select the objects that you want to align.
• 4. Decide which one of the objects should not move at all. The object you selected first? The one you selected last? The biggest or the smallest one? Or perhaps you want to move all the objects in relation to the page? In the dropdown labelled Relative to:, select the option that applies.
• 5. Click on the alignment button of your choice. Use the tooltips that display when you hover over them with the mouse to learn what each symbol means. The selected alignment will be applied immediately.

Before arranging the objects, they are distributed somewhat randomly on the canvas.

After aligning each row and column vertically and horizontally, the result looks very neat.

With the Align and Distribute dialog, it only takes a couple of clicks to arrange your objects neatly.