Book excerpt: A comprehensive user’s guide to Inkscape, a vector illustration application. Dmitry Kirsanov, a former core Inkscape developer, shares his knowledge of Inkscape's inner workings as he shows how to use Inkscape to draw with various tools, work with objects, apply realistic and artistic effects, and more. Step-by-step task-based tutorials show you how to create business cards, animations, technical and artistic drawings, and graphic assets for games. This second edition covers the new tools, improved text features, advanced new path effects and filters, as well as many new UI conveniences in Inkscape 1.0. A new chapter describes Inkscape's extensions for both users and developers. Learn how to: Navigate the canvas and customize your workspace and views Create new objects and transform, style, clone, and combine them Use gradients, patterns, filters, and path effects to liven up your work Work with layers, groups, object order, and locks to control your artwork View and manipulate your document’s structure with the XML Editor and the new Objects dialog Export your work to various formats