Easy Inkscape Text Effect

In this tutorial you will learn how to make a quick and easy text effect such as the one seen here. So let's get started!                                                 

1. With the text tool found in the side toolbar, click anywhere in the white area and type some text:

Note
For best results use a heavy font, I used the Black Arial font in this lesson. Changing the font style is done by going to the Text menu at the top of Inkscape and selecting text and Font... from the menu.

2.   Choose a color for your text from the color palette at the bottom of Inkscape by clicking on a color:

  
3. Give the text a white border by clicking white on the color palette while at the same time holding down the Shift key on the keyboard:

4. Click the selection tool in the toolbar so that the text is bounded in a rectangle with arrows, then click Ctrl+D on your keyboard to make a duplicate:

 5. The duplicate is now selected and sitting on top of the original. Change the duplicate's border color to the color of the text by clicking on the text with the color picker tool found in the toolbar and at the same time holding down the Shift key:

 6. At the bottom of  Inkscape on left side there is a Fill color box showing the color of the text, and below it is a Stroke color box showing the color of the border. Beside the Stroke color box there is a number, this number represents the width of the border, right click on the number and from the pop up menu choose 3 to make the border wider:

 7. With the duplicate still selected click white in the color palette to change the text color to white and click the "lower to bottom" button near the top of Inkscape to send duplicate to the back of the original:

 8.  Click anywhere outside in the white space to deselect. Still using the selection tool, click on the top text to select it. Switch to the gradient tool in the side toolbar, make sure it is set to linear gradient with the button near the top of Inkscape as shown in the illustration below. Click and drag mouse from top to bottom of text:

9. Notice when you click on the round gradient handle it turns blue, that means the bottom gradient is selected. While the lower gradient is selected you can pick another color from the color palette to change the lower gradient's color:

 And we are done. If you select top square handle of the gradient you can also change the top gradient's color too. Is Inkscape cool or what! In the works is a drop shadow tutorial so stay tuned.

Please feel free to leave a comment, suggestion or ask a question so I can make my tutorials better and easier to understand.