Enable Saving to XCF
My Thoughts on Windows 8.1!
When Microsoft first released Windows 8, my reaction was more of a, “meh!” I’m a Mac guy, but I was perfectly copacetic using Windows 7 under [amazon text=Parallels&amazon template=preview script&chan=amazon default&asin=B00ENFVLAQ]. Windows 7 does everything that I could ask for. Plus it’s pretty stable. It really only serves two purposes: One, to run programs that doesn’t have an equivalent on the Mac OS. Two, to serve as my experimental play-thing. When Parallels offered Windows 8.1 Preview for download, I had just found my new toy.
My Impressions
[amazon text=Windows 8&amazon chan=amazon default&asin=B00EDSI7QO] was rewritten to serve as a unifying operating system for all Microsoft-related devices. (phones, Slate tablets, and PCs) I get why Microsoft chose to have a touch-screen based interface across all devices. And in all honesty, it was a stroke of genius. But on a computer that lacks any touch-capabilities, the interface feels like more of a hinderance.
The Good News
The good news is that both GIMP and Inkscape can be installed and usable under Windows 8.1. Also enabling save to XCF in Inkscape is incredibly much easier than in Windows 7. In fact, it is so easy that this tutorial will be even shorter than my previous article on how to enable Save to XCF in Inkscape.
Now for those of you wondering why would you want to enable this feature? Well, for us advanced graphic artists, we like to mix things up between our vector and pixel graphics. Inkscape does allow users to use layers, which happen to be extremely handy. On its own, Inkscape is incapable of saving to any bitmap format with layers intact. Yeah, you can export to PNG and keep your transparency, but the situation still sucks. My other problem is that Inkscape is also incapable of saving to Adobe PhotoShop’s native file format, PSD. (PhotoShop is my choice for editing pixels.) This format allows for layers and makes it easier to jump from Inkscape to PhotoShop.
Thankfully Inkscape is capable of accessing GIMP’s libraries and use them to translate vector images into XCF files. And if you want, you can use GIMP to convert your XCF files into a PSDs, with all of your layers intact.
Unfortunately under Windows 8, you still have to go through a little trouble to enable Save to XCF. Before figuring this process out, I had installed both Inkscape and Gimp. Then while playing with Inkscape, I noticed that “Save to XCF” was already listed as one of my option in the “Save As…” window. I was elated. I even created a test file and tried it out. Of course it didn’t work, and I started getting fun, irritated messages that never went away such as this:
Then I came to realize that I’d have to do a bit of tweaking before I could get Inkscape exporting XCF files under Windows 8. More plainly, I had to find away to help Inkscape find Gimp so it could access its libraries. That’s when the tinkering began…
How to Enable Save to XCF Under Windows 8.1
1.) Install Gimp. If you haven’t installed Gimp yet on your Windows PC, you can download a copy off Gimp’s website. (This “how to” also assumes that you have Inkscape currently installed.)
2.) Find your copy of the Gimp application on you local hard drive. It’s usually located within C:>Program Files>GIMP-2.8>. If you’re trapped inside the touch interface, click on the down arrow in the bottom left-hand corner of your screen.
Gimp’s icon will be where Inkscape’s is, towards the middle of your screen. Right-click on Gimp’s icon to bring up a special task bar at the bottom of your screen. In that task bar, click on Open file location. This will bring up a window that shows an alias for Gimp.
3.) Rename the alias by right-clicking on the icon, and selecting Rename in the contextual menu. Windows will highlight the name, and you’ll change it from gimp-2.8 to Gimp. This allows Inkscape to correctly find Gimp.
4.) That’s it! You can now freely save your Inkscape images to Gimp’s XCF format. You can do this by clicking in Inkscape’s File menu and select Save As… Select GIMP XCF maintaining layers.
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