Inkscape - "Exclusion" reverts "break apart" and puts all nodes to one path

Question

I have a hand-drawn shapes, in fact, a hand-written text. I wanted to make it bolder so I used the technique of adding a 1 mm stroke, and then converted the stroke to path. That "removed" the fill and left me with the the outline. I wanted the fill so I created a Union with a copied original. This, for some reason, created shapes which had the inner spaces filled, and an additional path that was basically the inner space, but also filled.

I could select the two shapes and do a Difference. This din't work with multiple shapes because of how Diff works. But Exclusion worked. I could choose all of the shapes and do Exclusion and got the result I wanted.

However, the result was a single path. The clearly separated shapes (words) were all in a single path. I wasn't aware this is possible - I thought a path is a single shape, perhaps mangled so that it crosses itself, but how can it make separate shapes? I didn't check SVG representation but the Objects window was showing just a single path.

1) How can I separate items in such path? I have tried "Break apart". But that gave me again the state when the inner spaces were filled. I couldn't select individual shapes because it always chose just the bounding box of all the shapes.

2) Is it possible to simplify (automate) the process of widening the shapes? I.e. the same effect as if you add a stroke which is the same as fill. I have noticed it's quite common practice in daily graphical work.

Answer 1

For 1.):

Subpaths. A path can consist of any number of open or closed subpaths which make up the whole path. 'Break apart' will break a path with subpaths apart into all its components, which includes parts that lie within other parts (aka the holes in the letters). This is normal.

For 2.):

For all options: Start with the 'Stroke to Path' on the hand-drawn text, if the original text only consists of a stroked path, in order to get letters like this:

Option a) Use Path > Outset. You can define the amount of outset that is applied in the settings at Edit > Preferences > Behavior > Steps. For keyboard shortcuts, see https://inkscape.org/en/doc/keys092.html#idm1210

Option b) Use Path > Dynamic Offset or Path > Linked Offset - the first will convert your path into an object that has a mouse-adjustable outset, the second creates a duplicate of the object, and that duplicate has a mouse-adjustable outset and will adapt to any changes of the original path. These outsets are not normal paths. You can convert them to a normal path by doing Path > Object to Path.