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sweet, works perfectly fine. took me about 20 minutes though to figure out how to mike the tile sign since i'm working on a swiss keyboard. so if anyone needs to know (should work for all german keyboards): it's alt + n then space.
thanks!

Thanks the alt key now works. However when I try to adjust kerning or line spacing of text using alt arrow keys, the arrow keys don't seem to work. To kern I can use alt < > but I haven't worked out how to adjust the line spacing. Any help would be greatly appreciated

Thank you very much!
Works great with Snow Leopard Version 10.6.2, XQuartz 2.3.4 und Inkscape 0.47 :D

Thanks for the tutorial!
Works great here, with Snow Leopard and the latest development built of Inkscape.

I've done all this and still can't get it to work. Using xev it seems like my alt key is functioning as keycode 66, but in Inkscape nothing happens. I make the .xmodmap file, but I don't think it's loading. When I create the .xinitrc file (The only line is xmodmap ~/.xmodmap), I get X11 in an infinate loop trying to open. That is, the icon pops up in my toolbar, then goes away without opening Inkscape. Then it happens again and again until I kill the process. Any thoughts.

Thanks.


Huck

Just confirmed that this solution works under Snow Leopard as well. Thanks!

Nicely done, works perfectly. Thank you!

BTW the video I referred to in the first line was an inkscape tutorial on kerning at screencasters.heathenx.org.

I was banging my head against this wall for the past 2 hours or so after watching the video. I did all the proper things in xmodmap but it still wouldn't work. Then I ran across these helpful words in the comments on screencasters.heathenx.org

"In Inkscape 0.46, you have to select all typing, [ go to "text" in the top menu ] and press “Convert to Text” to kern it, even if it’s already in text form.

At least for me."

Gave it a shot. Now I'm kerning like a champ. In the immortal words of Homer Simpson, "Woo-hoo!"

[quote="guest"]I'm another nedit user who was missing the alt-key menu accelerators. I mapped 66 and 69 to Alt_L and Alt_R respectively, and it works! [/quote]Why both? Now you can't enter any diacritics or special characters into Inkscape's or NEdit's text fields. But those who have a localized keyboard often depend on 'Option+key' combinations for standard characters like '[,],{,},|,\, #' or just the basic '@' and '~'. Keep the right Option-key mapped to 'Mode_switch' and you have both available in any X11-app: '[b]Alt[/b]' and '[b]Option[/b]'.

[quote="Mathematical Leopard"]For those of you who (like me) couldn't get the commands to work in a Mac OS X Terminal window: you need an xterm window[/quote]Care to explain what difficulties you had in Terminal.app?

BTW - JiHO has recently updated the FAQ > Mac OS X specific issues > '[url=http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#How_to_make_the_Alt_key_work_.3F]How to make the Alt key work ?[/url]'.

Thanks for such a clearly explained fix :)
For those of you who (like me) couldn't get the commands to work in a Mac OS X Terminal window: you need an xterm window and can open one from within X11 by choosing "Terminal" from the X11 Applications menu.

I'm another nedit user who was missing the alt-key menu accelerators. I mapped 66 and 69 to Alt_L and Alt_R respectively, and it works! Thanks.

I still can't kern in flowed text :(

Since this solution seems to be addressing not just Inkscape but other X11 apps, I've copied the original HOWTO to my personal blog and will be addressing any further questions and comments from there.

http://francisnorth.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-to-get-alt-key-to-function-properly.html

thanks - works with 10.5.7 + XQuartz 2.3.3.2 + inkscape 0.46

Thanks.

Works like a charm.
Thanks a bunch.

That's a great help! Thanks so much.. I'm new to Inkscape and thought it was me misunderstanding the Alt commands, seems not!

[quote="Guest (Eric)"]I'm using a MacBookPro 4.1 (early 2008). I tried what Francis North recommended in the first post. The reason I did it was different -- I don't use inkscape. I was trying to get a WinXP SP3 virtual machine running in Virtual Box 2.1.4 to allow me to input Alt+[code] characters in Windows applications from my MacBook Pro keyboard. I'm new to Macs, so maybe I'm missing something. And, yes, I just realized that my MBP does NOT have the Num Lock capability! :([/quote]

If anyone would like to see the discussion of this (so far no solution), you may go to the Virtual Box forum link: http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17914&start=0http://forums.virtualbox.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=17914&start=0.

I'm using a MacBookPro 4.1 (early 2008). I tried what Francis North recommended in the first post. The reason I did it was different -- I don't use inkscape. I was trying to get a WinXP SP3 virtual machine running in Virtual Box 2.1.4 to allow me to input Alt+[code] characters in Windows applications from my MacBook Pro keyboard. I'm new to Macs, so maybe I'm missing something. And, yes, I just realized that my MBP does NOT have the Num Lock capability! :(

...for someone on a Mac, running Leopard and X11 2.1.5 (although I am updating it) who is utterly ignorant of 'terminal' 'bash' etc etc, the instructions to activate manual kerning in Inkscape were a bit baffling. I managed to open the Terminal window, type in the first line given: xmodmap-pke>~/.Xmodmap; to which it replied 'file or directory unknown', so now I am stymied.

Is this seemingly quite advanced mucking around in the innards of the X11 coding really the only way to fix this?

Cheers.

Great, worked for me! Thank you a lot!

very useful information

I'm not able to get any of these tips to work on my iMac alu (and alu keyboard), danish keyboard, Mac OSX 10.5.6, Xquartz 2.1.5.
(getting the Alt+underlined letter IS working)
My big problem is that i can't kern my text within Inkscape. Followed every intruction, but still can't kern my text.
HELP.
I'm totally frustrated, tried for several days. TOTAL noob using Term and Xterm.

Thanks for the great tip; not being able to kern was starting to get really frustrating.