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I have added end arrows to some connectors and Bézier curves, but I cannot find how to set their colour, since they appear to be concerned neither by the background settings nor by the outline ones. They remain black no matter what.

How can I assign a given colour to an arrow?

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  • 6
    This issue has been fixed in Inkscape 0.91. It is now possible to change the color of the marker from the interface directly. – Jean-Sébastien Apr 21 '15 at 17:35
  • A somewhat unintuitive point - On Inkscape 0.91 as well, this problem still persists, when the arrow is first created and then the color changed. Instead, if the color of the path is first chosen, then a newly created arrow will match the path's color. – V-Red Aug 14 '18 at 19:45
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Edit: As of Inkscape 0.91, markers take the color of the object. Extensions and workarounds are no longer needed.

This is one of the most frequently asked questions about Inkscape, so I'll just quote from their site:

How do I change the color of markers (e.g. arrow ends)?
By default, markers are black. You can change their color to match the color of the stroke of the object they are applied to by enabling an effect: Extensions > Modify Path > Color Markers to Match Stroke.

However, this script is an external Python tool, so you might be out of luck if you use Inkscape on Windows or Mac OS X (which has Python, but is missing some dependency). In that case, there is no other way than to edit the SVG source for the objects. Painful!

This should change at some point in the future, as it is one of the most requested features (see this bug report which gathers progress, or lack thereof). Citing one of the developers (in 2008):

There's no doubt that this should be the default behaviour, and it's one of the most requested features (bug 165865). But it's a question of someone taking the time to implement it.

and a testimonial from a user, in 2012:

The original bug was reported in 2004... after 8 years I start to believe I can only make black arrows

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  • Thanks a lot. On Linux it works like a charm. Sorry to have asked a FAQ question... – Eusebius Nov 4 '12 at 11:36
  • Color Markers to Match Stroke removes some objects in my svg... – Adobe Jan 20 '14 at 15:34
  • 2018 and it still not implemented. – Ramon Martinez Nov 29 '17 at 19:30
  • I'm using Inkscape 0.91 on Linux and this is still a problem. – V-Red Aug 14 '18 at 19:39
  • In v0.92 they slightly changed the menu names: Extensions > Modify Path > Color Markers, make sure the appropriate Assign fill color or Assign stroke color is checked (Live Preview helps here), then click Apply. – GraehamF Oct 27 '18 at 0:00

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