Hi,

I am new in this forum! My native language is german, so I hope you can understand me!

My problem: Last week I have baught a MacBook with Mac OS X Leopard. Inkscape is my most frequently used software, and so I have it installed on my new Mac. The first time, I started Inkscape after the installation process, it runs without problems. Three days ago I wanted to start Inkscape to work on my projects, but Inkscape didn't start. Then I contacted a german forum for advice, but it doesn't help. I still can't start Inkscape.

If I doubleclick on the Inkscape icon the icon appears in the dock and a few seconds later the X11 icon appears next to the Inkscape icon. The X11 bash - window appears on the screen and then nothing happens! A member of an german forum gives me the advice to wait long time. So I have waited between 20 and 30 minutes, but nothing happened!

I think that the error is at Inkscape, because I can start GIMP, which uses X11, too!

What can I do to run Inkscape?
I need Inkscape every day. Please help me to run Inkscape on my Mac.

MBUSer

I'm not sure we have many mac techy people here, so you may be best filing a bug/raising it on the dev mailing list.

I don't understand the bug list! But I found a bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/176058

But I think it is not similar to my problem? What do you think?

@MBUser

I hope this snippet of info helps. I upgraded to Leopard today and ran into problems with X11 and Gimpshop. I deleted Gimpshop and I am now running Gimp vers 2.4.4

I am also running X11 vers 1.4

As for Inkscape I don't know what version your running but I have installed the latest development version as of the 09.01.08. You can find the version that I am running here http://inkscape.modevia.com/macosx-snap/Inkscape-16997-i386.dmg

Good luck!

Hi MBUser; this my first post to the forum, so forgive me if make some silly mistakes with the formatting!

I spent much of the weekend getting Inkscape to run on my shiny new iMac, and I know how frustrating it can be to get inkscape running! I think I've got it running now under Leopard 10.5.1, so I'll try to outline all the steps I needed to take to get it to run. Forgive me if I accidentally leave something out; this took a lot of stages to figure out.

First, install the latest version of XQuartz. XQuartz is a community upgraded version of Apple's X11, and is apparently stabler with apps like Inkscape.

Next, the standard version of Inkscape has a startup script that doesn't work with Leopard. I got it working by hacking the script myself, but then I found an easier method: download the version of Inkscape with the fix built in. This version should work okay with X11.

Finally, you might want to change the key bindings in X11, as the Option/Alt key doesn't work very well for me with Control. I've set it up so both the Command and Control keys work as control. I think the way I changed this is by creating a plain text file in your home directory with your favourite editor like TextEdit (it must be plain text, not rich formated) with the following commands:


Then open up a Terminal (it's under Application/Utilities). First type in "xmodmap -pke > xkeydefault"; xmodmap is a program that will set the keys in X11. Typing in "xmodmap -pke" will list the current settings, and the "> xkeydefault" bit at the end will save the settings to a file called xkeydefault. You may need this to set things back to as they were if you make a mistake.

Finally type in "xmodmap nameofyourtextfile", where you replace "nameofyourtextfile" with the name of the file where you saved the commands up above. xmodmap will change the keys to set Command and Control to both act like Control under X11. If you don't like it, you can type in "xmodmap xkeydefault" and it will set the keys back to as they were.

Hopefully I got all that right and it works for you.

Incidentally, is there a plan to make a native version of Inkscape for Mac OS X, as I'd really like to see one. If there is, I'd be happy to help out as a tester or debugger; I'm a bit of a programmer although I've never worked on a native Mac app or something as large as Inkscape before.

Hi!
I had the same problem some months ago.
Inkscape was installed in a folder somewhere on my desktop and it didn't work. What I did was just to move the Inkscape.app to the desktop, where it still is, and now it works perfectly. I have tried to move it to different folders, but it only works when sitting on my desktop.
I don't know if this is of any help...
If it doesn't work on the desktop either, try the applications folder

Can anyone help me?
Inkscape worked perfectly smooth on my iMac (OS X Leopard) until half an hour ago.
I had the same problem as MBUSer when trying to install Inkscape weeks ago. I am new to mac, and I didn't know how to install programs properly, so I just installed Inkscape in some folder. The program didn't open or a dialog popped up, saying something about fonts before the program froze or disappeared. After several hours I moved the app to the desktop. I didn't expect it to change anything, it was more an act of desperation, but suddenly the program window magically appeared. Since that day Inkscape worked perfectly and it has become my favourite design program which I've used on a daily basis.
I was in the middle of a design project half an hour ago when I came up with the brilliant (!) idea to cheer up the design with one of my artistic fonts. I searched through all my installed fonts in Fontbook until I found what I was looking for, but when i searched for the font in Inkscape, it didn't show up in the list of installed fonts. I realised that my chosen font was only installed in my user folder and not in the system folder. I dragged the font to the system fonts folder, restarted Inkscape, and nothing happened. Inkscape was dead. I removed the font, but still nothing happened.
I've tried to reinstall the application, install it in different locations and different users, restart my computer, delete all hidden program files, etc. But there's no way I can open my dear svg files.

I need help!
I've tried everything, I'm even asking you for help, although I usually hide from public places, and now I'm tired and feeling terribly sorry for myself.
I really need inkscape right now, so if anyone could help me, I would be overjoyed!

Could you open 'Console.app' (in Applications/Utilities), select 'All Messages' (menu 'View' > 'Show Log List', top most entry in console window sidebar) and look for any messages related to X11, Xquartz and Inkscape? Report back with whatever you find.

It might also be useful to know more about the specific font that caused your trouble! Font format, etc. whatever Cmd+i tells you in FontBook.

What version of Inkscape do you have installed? (see menu 'Help' > 'About Inkscape…'). And the same for 'X11' > 'About X11…'.

Back in console.app, can you find a recent crash report of Inkscape? attach it to your reply if so (it's easier to read without forum html formatting… ;-)

hth, ~suv

~suv wrote:What version of Inkscape do you have installed? (see menu 'Help' > 'About Inkscape…'). And the same for 'X11' > 'About X11…'.

ok, forgot, inkscape doesn't run... Maybe you remember the download link or still have the dmg-file around?

maybe to cut things short: inkscape does use its own font (caching) system. so

1) disabling a font in FontBook doesn't help Inkscape, you have to remove the font from all possible locations (/Library/Fonts, /System/Library/Fonts, ~/Library/Fonts).

2) If the font was broken, Inkscape needs to rebuild its fontcache. Quit X11.app. Open Terminal.app and typeto remove the old cache files. Be careful here and don't insert any random spaces - 'rm *' would delete all files in your Home folder, no restore possible.

3) make sure, that there are no left over references to the bad font in the preferences: in terminal, type or, if you use an earlier version of inkscape, this should work:This renames the pref file so inkscape starts with carte blanche (i.e. default settings).

Now try again - what say you, inkscape? Watch the output in 'Console.app' - 'All Messages'.

I finally managed to get Inkscape working again! I just deleted all fonts (except from the apple fonts) from the system/library/fonts folder. I thought I had done so, but they were still there. It seems that Inkscape doesn't want me to use any other fonts than the system fonts. Strange.
At least it works like it did before - except from one thing: Suddenly all text in Inkscape (in the menus, etc) is huge! I guess it must have happened while I tried to get Inkscape back. The problem is, I don't remeber what I've done, I just tried everything I found when google searching.
Since I don't know what happened, I cannot undo it. Does anyone know what has happened?
I checked Gimp, and I believe the text is large there too (but i'm not sure, I hardly use Gimp), so perhaps it is a X11 problem?
Thanks

Yes, usually these Gui font issues are related to X11 and GTK+ settings. X11/XQuartz changed how it internally sets the dpi value (from 75 to 96 dpi). Did you recently update your system to 10.5.7 (this ships with a newer X11 version) or install a current XQuartz version?

For GIMP I will shamelessly plug my own reply to the topic 'Large Fonts' on gimper.net.

Regarding Inkscape, you'll need to dive into the application package (Finder - select Inkscape - right click - show package contents), now navigate to 'Contents/Resources/themes/Clearlooks-Quicksilver-OSX/gtk-2.0', open the file 'pre_gtkrc' in TextEdit (do not doubleclick, this executes it a terminal window - not what you want), scroll down and search for a line with As a reference for the size: upcoming Inkscape 0.47 will ship with but try yourself what fits your needs & likes best. When saving in TextEdit, be careful not to add '.txt' as extension - uncheck both option in the bottom part of the File dialog if necessary.

Keep in mind that you will loose this change when you reinstall Inkscape - only the recent development builds and the 0.47 prerelease already ship with a new gtkrc file.

With GIMP it's easier: making the changes in '~/Library/Application Support/Gimp/gtkrc' will survive new installs.

Thanks ~suv! That worked perfectly! I don't know how many times I have searched through the Resources folder, yet I never checked out this file! Inkscape keeps messing with my fonts, but
You saved my day

Font support has improved a lot in the newer dev versions, internally (pango/cairo libraries) and in the Gui - the dropdown list in the font toolbar just recently got rewritten and improved, the user fonts in ~/Library/Fonts are included again - so, with some luck the soon to be released 0.47 might solve or at least improve your font troubles. For now it's probably best to stick to ttf-fonts only (pango has difficulties with other formats like dfont or fon).