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I'm having difficulties with a really basic concept in Inkscape. How do I fill an enclosed path that has a line going into it? I've combined the original two paths to form one path, but filling it doesn't actually fill it. The only way I can seem to get it to work are hacks like adding a background object filled with the right color. Here's an example of my issue:

enter image description here

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Once we had combined paths we may not be able to fill an an enclosed area as expected:

enter image description here

In the combined path above the line on the lower right will also be treated as a part of a filled area, leading to the filling artifact.

To overcome this we should apply fills on non-combined paths, or we have to break apart the objects before we apply the fill:

enter image description here

If this is not possible we may use the Bucket Fill tool (Shift + F7 ). This tool will create an additional filled object within an enclosed area (see also this question):

enter image description here

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    The 2nd option worked for me. I just had to break it apart into two different pieces at the right place. Option 3 always looks ugly to me, because it leaves that weird white line.
    – CorayThan
    May 2, 2014 at 1:37
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    To remove the "weird white line" we can a) define a stroke to the newly created fill object or b) make it a tiny bit larger then move it down below the outlines.
    – Takkat
    May 2, 2014 at 6:06
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I am brand new to Inkskape and I found this question as the first search result for inkskape closed path fill. Unfortunately, the paint bucket added aliasing artifacts and I spent 15 further minutes trying to find the fill tool. For future searchers:

Fill a closed path by selecting the path and clicking a color in the pallete at bottom

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    This only works if the path fully encloses a surface. If your path is hollow, using the bucket tool and expanding the resulting fill area is the way to go.
    – mvreijn
    Jun 12, 2018 at 8:35

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