good lord thank you for putting this together! I've been trying to figure this out for a quilting pattern I'm designing and failing all over the place! This is EXACTLY what i needed!! Thank you!! :D
You're a life--and time--saver! I spent so much time learning to use Seamly2D only to run into issues with the layout and printing. I was already familiar with Inscape, so your video got me to print in only a few hours. Thank you!
Thank you!! I am a quilter & I designed a line drawing portrait for a foundation paper pieced wall quilt. I need fine sewing lines for sewing through the paper so using your template idea I made tiles. (Printer enlargement settings or poster size sites raster the lines too thick). I was able to play around with overlaying my FPP pattern pieces to get most of them on just one or two pages. I feel like a professional! Because my total wall quilt size is about 36"w x55" L I needed the margin lines to print for precision page matching where needed. *I just moved my rectangular mask to the back so that the image lines in the margin would print!
Thank you so much for the video. But I found a better way, if the ultimate goal is printouts that can be tiled, instead of separate PDF files. In Inkscape, change your page size to actual size, in this case, the size of 12 pages combined. And move the objects in. Then save as a PDF file. Now, using Adobe Reader (available free from Adobe), open the file and go to 'Print'. Select 'Poster'. There you can adjust overlap size, label the pages and add cut marks. You should be able to print pages that can be tiled. Furthermore, a single PDF file can be kept as a digital copy.
That sounds like it would be faster for personal use, but wouldn't work for someone selling patterns, for example. Many people need instructions even to print a pdf to scale, so expecting them to do a poster print would be frustrating for them.
Full size, non-tiled, pdf's can be printed as tiled in Acrobat Reader. Poster > Tile Scale 100% > Overlap .005 > Then choose Cut Marks. Print, trim, assemble. Can be done in any size available to your printer.
but how do you create a pdf larger than a sheet of paper? With inkscape you can create images larger than a sheet of paper but how do you get them to a pdf?
@@panxerox01 - You use Inkscape to save them as a pdf. I do it all the time when designing and printing plans for radio controlled airplanes. Most of the plans are 30" x 40". Printed using Acrobat Reader, and taped together after printing.
I like this approach. It seems to me that this could be automated if one were to write an inkscape script. It could save a lot of time! Inkscape allows you to write Pythion scripts to automate tasks.
Thanks a lot for this guide, it really helps me a lot here. It's a shame that this functionality or even basic multi page support doesn't come native with inkscape, but at least this makes it somewhat possible to print out bigger patterns. Inkscape is basically the only way I get to print my patterns made in Fusion 360
Thanks for the video. I have followed your instructions to the letter, but when I save a copy to a pdf file (eg page 1) my pdf file is blank. I am using inkscape v1.3.2. tia
I haven't used Inkscape for a while, so I'm not sure I have any helpful suggestions, other than make sure your page border is turned on (File menu, Document Properties) and the objects you want to put in the pdf are within the page border. If that's not it, I don't know, try a Google search.
No, I don't have a tutorial for that. If you want to have overlap, you could just skip making the white masking rectangle. Or if you want a measured amount, when you start to make the grid, make one rectangle the size I did, and another inset a half inch (or whatever) from that. Make the larger rectangle a light color and put it on a layer that does not print. Then group both rectangles together, and make a grid by duplicating them and aligning the corners to the smaller rectangle. Make the drawing window on the paper the size of the larger rectangle.
I cannot get the actual page boarder to "stick" to the border with a hole in it (your peach one). So I ended up having to move the whole grid with pattern pieces on it to on top of the page boarder. How do I get it to move around with the peach boarder instead of stay put? Hope that makes sense.
Make sure you have enabled object snapping, and you have selected. I usually turn on everything in the "nodes, snaps, and handles category. Unfortunately, snapping is sometimes buggy, and they don't always work. You could try restarting the program, or even restarting your computer. On some occasions I've given up trying to get the object to snap, and I just zoom in really close and get it as close as I can visually.
When you go to save as pdf, did you have the same options selected as I did in the pdf dialogue box? I have "Use document's page size" selected. If that is not the problem, I'm not sure what setting you need to change. I haven't been using Inkscape a lot lately.
Thanks so much for this. My question is--is the page border really necessary? And never mind...the answer is yes. I had misunderstood. I have found the border really helps.
The page border is necessary if you have multiple sheets that need to be joined together. You cut off two adjacent edges along the border line (bottom and right borders, for example) on each sheet, then tape or glue them together, matching the border lines.
Thanks for this video, I can do it till minute 10, but I can not save it as pdf, I only get an empty page! Any idea what I am doing wrong? What do I have to select bevore saving tile 1?
Make sure the part of the drawing you want to export is in the Inkscape page outline, and choose "Use document's page size" when you export. I'm not sure what else could be the problem. I haven't used Inkscape lately.
@@elpam8888 The page border. Go into the File menu, and select Document Properties. On the Page tab, make sure "Show page border" is checked. Only objects inside the page border will be saved to a pdf. Then to zoom to it, either press 5 or go to the View menu, select Zoom, then Page.
Another question, how do I save it in a way that keeps the layers? Like if the pattern comes in multiple sizes, how do I make it so I can open the pdf and turn on/off layers so I don't have to print all the sizes.
Select the rectangle, then look on the bottom left of your window. You will see "Fill" and "Stroke". Right-click on the colored block to the right of "Fill", and select "Remove fill". Or alternatively, select the rectangle, then select Object>Fill and Stroke from the menu, and edit it there.
Thank you for your tutorial. When you are creating your mask rectangles you say 'select both' and I'm wondering if this where I'm going wrong because mine won't work. Are you holding shift or something when you select them both?
@@growyourownclothes8442 Thank you so much for replying. I now have an issue with one of my patterns pieces I've bought on to the tiles not grouping with the rest. So I group them and then try to move but this one piece moves. I did manage somehow to group them all to move but it has grouped outside the tiles where that pattern piece finishes.
@@ladyinoz If you double click on an item in a group, it lets you edit the grouped items without ungrouping. Sometimes this can be confusing. From your description, that sounds like it might be the problem. To get out of editing an object inside a group, simply select another object outside the group. Another thing that can happen is if you are editing inside a group, then duplicate or move one of the objects and move it elsewhere, it will still be part of the group, but you may not realize it. You can end up with a mess of groups grouped together, and some objects in a group that are also part of another group. If that is your problem, the easiest way to fix it is to select all of the objects you are having problems with, ungroup everything multiple times (look down at the bottom of the screen where it tells you what type of objects you have selected and keep ungrouping until it doesn't list any objects of type "group"), and de-select everything. Then you can group your objects from scratch.
@@growyourownclothes8442 I'm going wrong somewhere in creating the border. Between your video and tutorial it doesn't work for me when I try to go path, difference.
Illustrator has an even simpler process. Because the program is responsible for creating the division by pages when printing PDF at once. You don't have to do it manually like Inkscape. :)
If I remember correctly, I used the polygon tool to make a square, rotated it 45 degrees, and set the fill to black and partially transparent (maybe 50%).
If you mean you don't want to see the lines, you can turn off the stroke: Select the object, then on the bottom left of the screen, right-click on the colored box to the right of the word "Stroke" and select "remove stroke" from the pop-up menu. It could also be that you have multiple copies of the border on top of each other, and you need to delete the extra one(s). If you mean that the smaller rectangle is not being cut out from the larger one, make sure that the smaller rectangle is on top (select the larger one and hit the Page Down button on your keyboard until you see the smaller one on top of the larger one). Then select both rectangles and re-try the difference command. Also maybe try closing and re-opening Inkscape, if that doesn't work.
Hi! Thank you very much for this video! I'd like to use this technic to print my patterns. Could you please send me the csv file in the video without the pattern?
If you mean the .svg file with the borders and test squares, there is a link on this page to download it: growyourownclothes.com/2015/04/03/creating-tiled-pdfs-in-inkscape/
hola saludos desde perú me ayudaste mucho con tu video mil gracias lo realize bien, pero no se porque mi inpresion salio un poco mas pequeña lo unico que hize es unir los archivos pdf en uno solo y cuando lo imprimi se reducio el tamaño original tendrias una idea porque sucede esto.
I am not sure what you are asking, exactly. These are the two blog posts that I wrote on Inkscape, which might help you get started with Inkscape: growyourownclothes.com/2014/10/30/tips-for-pattern-drafting-with-inkscape/ growyourownclothes.com/2015/04/03/creating-tiled-pdfs-in-inkscape/
@@growyourownclothes8442 I not sure how to set up the numbered pages are they each a 8 x 11 1/2 sheet of paper or a paper (drawing surface) divided into sections?
@@sherylanndunkle1440 First I made my entire drawing actual size. Then I drew a 7" by 10" grid on top of it. I grouped everything together (drawing, grid, and page numbers), then moved the group around so that one tile was centered on the print area (called the "Page" in Inkscape). I masked off the edges as described in the video, saved that page as a pdf, then moved the entire group over so the next tile was centered over the print area, made another pdf, and repeated for each page.
