6) Fill and stroke

 

Fill and stroke

The fill and stroke of an object is one of the ‘style’ properties, which an object has. The fill and stroke of objects are collectively called paint. An object can have only stroke, only fill or both fill and stroke.

A circle with only fill, only stroke and fill and stroke

To apply fill and stroke to an object, you must first select the object. There are several ways to apply colour to an object’s fill and stroke.

1. Using the colour palette

To apply Fill colour : Select the object and click on any colour on the colour palette present at the bottom of the canvas.

To apply Stroke colour: Select the object and press Shift key and click on the colour, you want the stroke to have.

Use the scroll bar, to see the entire range of colours in the colour palette.

2. Using the style indicator

On the lower left corner of the inkscape window, below the colour palette, there is the style indicator that indicates the style of the selected object.

You can remove the fill and stroke of the object by right clicking on the corresponding swatch (fill or stroke) and by clicking on ‘remove’ from the pop-up menu.

3. Fill and stroke window

Double clicking on the style indicator opens up the fill and stroke window, which displays different paint options for applying fill and stroke to an object.

You will see that the Fill and stroke window has three tabs: Fill, Stroke paint, and Stroke style. The Fill tab lets you edit the fill of the selected object(s). Using the buttons just below the tab, you can select types of fill, including no fill (the button with the X), flat color fill, as well as linear or radial gradients.

Sl. No.	Paint types in Fill and stroke window	Icon
1.	No paint
2.	Flat colour
3.	Linear gradient
4.	Radial gradient
5.	Pattern

Using the Stroke paint tab, you can remove the stroke (outline) of the object. The last tab, Stroke style, lets you set the width and other parameters of the stroke:

Objects with different stroke styles

4. Dropper tool

Yet another convenient way to change a color of an object is by using the Dropper tool (F7). Just click anywhere in the drawing with that tool, and the picked color will be assigned to the selected object's fill (Shift+click will assign stroke color).

Gradient

Gradient is a paint type just like flat colour, where in both the fill and stroke may have various types of smooth colour gradients.

Linear gradient Radial gradient

Gradients can be applied either to the fill or stroke of objects or both.