Inkscape

How do I break apart a path without losing holes?

Asked by Andy Owen

I have a path which makes a shape with a hole in it along with some other unconnected parts (e.g. use the text tool to make the word "to", then "Path->Object to Path").

I would like to be able to run the "Path->Break Apart" tool, and end up with the "t" being a path and the "o" being a different path. Instead, the two subpaths in the "o" get broken apart, and now the hole in the "o" is filled in.

(The big picture of what I'm doing is just cleaning up the output from automatically tracing a bitmap)

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Best su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#1

To 'mend' the hole again: select the two sub-paths of the "o" and combine them (Ctrl+K).

It cannot be avoided when breaking paths apart: 'Break apart' just separates each sub-path into a simple path. Holes normally are defined by the direction of the outer and inner path (and additionally by the fill rule). AFAIU there's nothing in the path data that would allow to easily detect which sub-paths form a 'donut' (or a filled (sub-)path with a hole) and would need to be kept combined when breaking apart the complex path.

<http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Paths-Editing.html#Paths-Misc>
<http://tavmjong.free.fr/INKSCAPE/MANUAL/html/Attributes-Fill-Stroke.html#Attributes-Fill-Rule>

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Andy Owen (the-new-andy) said : 		#2

Thanks a lot. I suspected the answer would be something like this. I was hoping there would be a way of just breaking apart the selected nodes (so I could select the "o" and then break it off from the original path).

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su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#3

> I was hoping there would be a way of just breaking apart the selected nodes

This was just recently filed as feature request:
Bug #659692 “Break apart only selected subpath(s)”
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/659692>