Friday, April 11, 2014

How to create PDFs using Inkscape and Drive

For those of us starting out in the design world Adobe products are not always instantly accessible out the gate. 

While they do a great job creating high quality content for print and the web, the initial investment in these products can be steep.  

In my home design process I often use Inkscape to do layout and design work.  The ways you are able to interact with images, typography and filters are pretty familiar for people who have used illustrator in the past.

Though exporting my designs from inkscape as PDFs has been frustrating  maddening  worse than shooting myself with a staple gun difficult for me.

As I was researching this topic I saw many options that are doable using other freeware and plug-ins.  But, for me, I like to keep my process simple.

I realized in 5 quick steps I could go from design to PDF using drive.  I can't say that this moment was transcendent, but the skies did seem a little bluer.

Here are my steps to simply get a PDF from Inkscape:

1. Export png of design from Inkscape (tutorial)
2. Open a new doc in google drive.
3. Set doc margins to .25" to give a buffer (tutorial)
4. Paste png in doc.
5. Download doc as pdf (tutorial)

Hopefully this helps.  My monitor can tell you it saved it's life (why do we always get mad at the monitor?)!


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