• 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)

Creating Custom Fonts

With HTML5 and CSS3, it has become easy to use custom fonts on your web site. Fonts can be saved in different file formats: OTF, TTF and SVG. The letters, numbers and special characters a font consists of are called glyphs.

Inkscape provides a dialog dedicated to the creation of SVG fonts in the menu under Text > SVG Font Editor. There is a special template prepared for you to use when you want to create a font, which is meant for drawing one glyph per layer. When you create a font, this basically means that you will need to create as many glyphs as your font is supposed to contain. To open the template, use File > New from Template > Typography Canvas. For creating an SVG font, follow these steps:

• 1. In the column labelled Font, click on New to create a font. You can double-click on the generic name of the font to change it.
• 2. In the Glyphs tab, click on Add Glyph to indicate that you want to create a new glyph. Double-click on the Glyph name field to name your glyph, and on the Matching String field to enter the letter that it corresponds to.
• 3. Draw the path for your glyph on the canvas.
• 4. When you're happy with your glyph, select it, and also select the corresponding row in the dialog, then click on Get curves from selection.

Repeat this process for all the glyphs in your font. You can always test your font by typing a text into the field at the bottom of the SVG Font Editor dialog and looking at the preview above it.

This functionality is meant for typographers, but amateurs, too, can quickly get a working result and test their work as they go.

If you speak French, read the book "Fontes Libres" to learn more about creating typography.

Template for creating typography

Dialog for creating SVG fonts