How to Draw a Spiral in Inkscape?

Inkscape’s built-in Spiral tool allows users to create precise geometric spirals with just a few clicks. This article provides a straightforward guide on how to locate the tool, draw a spiral on your canvas, and adjust its properties—such as the number of turns, divergence, and inner radius—to customize your vector artwork.

To start drawing, locate the Spiral tool in the left-hand toolbox (or simply press F9 or I on your keyboard). Click and drag anywhere on the canvas to create your shape. Holding the Shift key while dragging will constrain the center point, while holding the Ctrl key snaps the angle of the spiral to specific increments.

Once the spiral is drawn, you can manipulate its shape using the handles directly on the canvas or by adjusting the values in the Tool Control Bar at the top of the window.

• Turns: This setting controls how many times the spiral wraps around its center. Increasing this number adds more loops.
• Divergence: This determines how quickly the radius increases between each turn. A value of 1.0 creates a perfectly even spiral (an Archimedean spiral), values less than 1.0 pack the outer turns closer together, and values greater than 1.0 spread the outer turns further apart.
• Inner Radius: Adjusting this setting cuts away the center of the spiral, creating an empty space in the middle. A value of 0.0 starts the spiral directly from the center point.

If you ever want to revert the spiral back to its original geometric state after experimenting with these settings, you can quickly click the Reset edit parameters icon on the far right of the Tool Control Bar.