Hello all! I'm new to the forums, but I've been lurking for a week or so. I'm trying to soak up the collective knowledge as I go about teaching myself how to use Inkscape.

So my situation is that I'm trying to design a logo for a side-project and I'm running into some trouble. I'm learning how to use the clip function to merge two images... but I'm not sure how to do it with text.

If I type out a word over an image, what process would I go about in order to only keep the part of the image that is under the text? Is that possible? I will post a pic of it!

Hello Guest,

Welcome here!

Type your text, using and scale/position it to the location where you like to have it, over the image you want to use.

Then convert the text to a path, using "Path" -> "Object to path"

Now select the underlying image and your text and do "Object" -> "Clip" -> "Set".

You should now only see your text, where the characters are filled with the underlying image .

ErikTiePie,

thank you for the reply! i was the one who wrote the OP, but apparently i wasn't logged in.

i had previously attempted this, but what happens is the font's shadow acquires the image, but the letters themselves do not. what does that mean?

*edit for clarification* if you see the image i originally posted, you'll notice each letter has a shadow effect. that effect is what is retaining the image beneath, but the inner area of each letter is not acquiring the image.

if i change the font to something else, then the process you recommended works perfectly, so this must be something to do with how the font becomes a "path"?

1. type your text.
2. duplicate text object.
3. import bitmap img or whatever object you're using as background.
4. duplicate background.
5. postion text object over background.
6. select text object and background > object > clip > set. (I don't believe it is necessary to convert text to path first, but if this doesn't work then do that.)
7. select your clipped background and move to top of image using home key or object>bring to top.
8. select the other text object and apply blur using the fill and stroke dialog. then move it behind the clipped background.

You can get more sophisticated effects but this should work.

edited to add the quick result ii got with the above technique. I did add a second "shadow" in white b/c the text was getting lost in the image. Still not perfect, but better.

i think there is a little confusion about what i'm trying to do, so i will post some updated pics of it.

in this picture, you'll see the plain text "Control" at the top. beneath it is the image that i want to have shown within the letters. the next word "Control" is the output of putting "Control" over that image and doing the Object -> Clip -> Set commands. i know the image is small, but what happens is the only part that is left of the remote control picture is in the shadowing on the letters... i want the remote image to be present within the actual letters themselves (as show in the final word). i switched the text to something else, and did Object -> Clip -> Set and the text now appears to be made out of the remote control image.

why won't the first text do the same thing? instead it only applies the image to the letter's shadowing effect.

Clip clips to the area that is the paths filled. I think you'll find on that text with the fill attribute is actually the part that looks like that shadow. The white areas are probably transparent. Do a on the "O" is 4 concentric rings or 2? Or click on the text and change the fill color see what changes. If the black part changes color (or if the "O" is 4 concentric rings) then that is the area that is consider the fill by inkscape. You can still get what you want by breaking the path apart. The "O" will break in to 4 rings you'll have to re-build the "O" it using exclusions. And it will look like you've lost some parts until you readjust the fill. If that is not it, it's probably a bug, even if it's a bug you might be able get around it by breaking the paths apart and some creative path operations.

yeah, the problem is your font. if you'll notice my image is very close to the sample you provided originally. your font is only an outline rather than a black stroke with a white fill. you need a different font or remake the current font as a path as EarlyBlake suggests.

Eureka! I couldn't get the last suggestion working either, because using wasn't bringing up any paths!

I ended up taking the whole image and font into GIMP and manually defining paths there. This allowed me to crop everything else out that wasn't needed and get the effect I wanted! Here are the results!



Thanks again for everyone's help!! You all rock!

You can do that in gimp because the text is treated as bitmap so it doesn't matter if the font is just the outline or the whole shape like it does in inkscape. I'm glad you got it to work, but your initial image didn't match what you wanted, making it difficult to help you.

Must have been some kind of paths there otherwise clip wouldn't have worked at all.

For the record, if you wanted to do this all in inkscape, you could.
1. create your text object.
2. duplicate it twice.
3. convert one duplicate to path and do path>union.
4. convert other duplicate to path and align with the unioned duplicate. then do path>difference.
5. take resulting path and align over object as desired and do object>clip.
6. align remaining text object over clipped image.

should give you the result you're looking for.