Inkscape Beginner’s Guide

I highly recommend this book for true beginners, like me. I'm a real newcomer to graphics. I have some experience in Photoshop, but that's all. Amazingly, I'm zipping right through this book & learning very quickly! I'm amazed, because I'm mildly dyslexic & a slow learner. The writing style is clear & friendly. The lessons are structured so that you'll remember what you've learned. There is very little 'tech-speak', although it doesn't 'talk down' either. I do recommend that you start from the beginning & go forward, rather than skipping around, because the lessons are built on what came before. Finishing each lesson gives you a great sense of accomplishment. It's a lot of fun! I checked out the other book offerings about Inkscape & I'm very glad I chose this book.

I am a real noob when it comes to vector graphic design, but I have a general design background. I nabbed this because Inkscape was a cheapie program I could throw on my Windows box and I hoped the skills I acquired here would transfer over to Adobe Illustrator on another machine. It only took me a few hours to get through this book. While the text was very clear and it introduced me to all of the basic tools within the program, I was a little disappointed by the breadth of the book. I felt there was only one "advanced" project in the book (the woman's face) and some other more interesting projects featured in the book were just brushed over (i.e., the sunburst). Some other reviewers suggested that completing this book would give someone "advanced" vector graphics design skills. I don't feel that way at all. At this point I think I have the tools I need to piece together some decent projects IF I ever get inspired to do vector design, but the book did not inspire me. When I see the graphics in the book and on websites cited in the text, I still think of most vector graphic design as cheesy clipart style design. It still doesn't seem pretty or cool. In general, I would say I like Inkscape a lot, the author is adept at describing things to beginners and I didn't see any major flaws in the Kindle version (best viewed on a color monitor).

After a recent upgrade to Windows 8.1 my version of CorelDraw was not compatible with Windows 8/8.1 and a new version was way more money than I was prepared to fork out. I had recently bought Windows 8.1, Office 2013 Home & Business which I found didn't include Access which I had to buy separately, then Norton Internet Security and a couple other programs I MUST have for my needs. I hunted around for a replacement, preferably cheap or free and Inkscape was both free and open source. I tried a couple other competitors before deciding Inkscape was the closest thing to CorelDraw and seemed the most straight forward with its GUI and seemed that the transition from Corel to it would not be difficult. As with any new piece of software, I will arm myself with technical manuals comparable to my skill level when learning it. That's what led me to this manual. A note here: the book is for the 32 bit version and I have a 64 bit OS so my version is .91 rather than what the book is written for which is version .48. In use I have seen nothing that doesn't apply and on the website to download Inkscape from two version are available, .42 and .91. I tried .42 first and it would not launch under my Windows 8.1 Pro which is the 64 bit version. However, version .91 launches and works perfectly. The book takes you from finding and downloading Inkscape through the most clear and understandable explanation of what vector graphics are, why they are used and compares them to rasterized graphics (pictures and similar) explaining how each one fits into imaging and why/where each is used. Even though this is little to do with the actual operation of the software, it really helps the user understand how the two types work together and where one is superior to the other. The rest is instructional with lots of clear, well written examples and explanations of why you see what you see as you work along. It isn't just 'this is what you will see' it's 'here's why you are seeing what you see'. Each chapter has a small self-test at the end which are cleverly designed to really show you if you are grasping the concepts and the mechanics of using the program. I am more or less at the beginning of becoming an intermediate user of graphic design programs like this. The book neither bore me by being too elementary or throws me in the deep end of the pool. I browsed ahead in the book and I am really impressed at the way the instructions progress. This is one of the better manuals like this for any software I have ever seen. My hope is there's an intermediate companion at some point written and presented in the same fashion. An advanced one after that would have me gatoring on my computer room floor! I also bought the Kindle version which normally I wouldn't have bothered with but it was very attractively priced because I had also bought the book. I have multiple monitors on my computer so I can put the book up on one while working the program on the other.

The issue that I have with this book it is written on version 0.47 & 0.48. The current version .93 is not covered or any of the later extensions.

As the author of "Au Set of Kemet" (The Story of Isis of Ancient Egypt) I can certainly appreciate any help in graphic design. This book did exactly that. I was looking for a new area to expand my limited knowledge in that field. This book helped me with that and more. As a result of this I have designed several new covers which I will be launching soon. Well worth it!

Very clear instructions on getting started. I found it good to have it running on my kindle and my pc to search for pictures. Also liked that the author included links to click on for more details in areas. Learned a lot from an absolute beginner level and no experience with any vector graphics programs.

The book is helpful, but not everything matches up and some of the links listed in the book are no longer valid. The book was written in 2012 for Inkscape 0.48. We are up to version 1.0.1. I still got a lot out of the text, but it certainly would be great if there was an up-to-date version available.

This book Inkscape Beginner's Guide has actually thought me how to use Inkscape to draw, what is considered Vector Graphic Design. I have the paper back version, and it is truly an asset for building websites and learning digital design work for beginners.