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How do you draw a transformable (rotation, resize, ...) curly brace or bracket (this: { }) in Inkscape?

I am aware of this thread and its solutions. One can import such an item from Openoffice, or import an SVG drawing of brackets from for example this. Yet another option is to type it as text, transform it to path, and do some point editing. With this later option, I can’t change the stroke size (unless I manually do some point editing), so I end up with a bracket with a thick line width, which is not a good option for me.

Is there any other, more convenient way?

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  • how about using textext extension to put a LeTex Curly brace into the drawing and then adjusting the size?
    – Foad
    Jun 15, 2018 at 8:57
  • Another idea might be to use SVG code indirectly
    – Foad
    Jun 15, 2018 at 10:06

7 Answers 7

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Use the standard bezier tool to create three anchor points. Then hold shift and move the control handles to change the curvature of the bezier path. The final step is to set the Join type to Bevel Join.

Curly bracket in Inkscape

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    … and if you want things to be symmetric, apply this procedure to only one branch of the brace, and then duplicate it, mirror it and join it with the original at the peak.
    – Wrzlprmft ♦
    Mar 7, 2017 at 9:17
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    Just as a reminder: to show "Fill and stroke" panel CTRL+SHIFT+F is used (on linux).
    – Igor Liferenko
    Apr 27, 2017 at 7:42
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    This is a beautiful and concise demonstration.
    – uglycoyote
    Feb 5, 2022 at 0:19
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Use the website LaTeX to Image that converts LaTeX to SVG/PNG images.

  1. Type the following LaTeX syntax

    $\{$

  2. Save as SVG.

  3. Uncheck the checkbox "Wrap input with \begin{align*} and \end{align*}".

  4. Download the image and you can simply drag and drop the SVG image into your current workspace.

(I also use this for all my LaTeX equations)

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    This doesn't seem to work now, but if I instead type \{ and don't uncheck the box, it works. +1
    – Richard DiSalvo
    Jun 14, 2022 at 16:59
  • Thanks for pointing it out @RichardDiSalvo. I have edited my answer accordingly.
    – antarteek
    Jun 15, 2022 at 14:56
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Sometimes, for inserting parentheses and math symbols in Inkscape, I usually write them in Mathtype and then simply copy-paste them in Inkscape. Gets the job done.

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One more possibility is to use the Inkscape function "Render Latex". The Latex code could be $\\{$, as antarteek suggested, or, for example, $\overbrace{\vphantom{text to make the brace long enough}}$.

The advantage of this method is that no external software is required, and the resulting brace is as beautiful as Latex is able to render.

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  • This is wrong. It's quite the opposite, the disadvantage is that it requires pdflatex to be installed in your system.
    – s.ouchene
    Jan 23, 2022 at 7:16
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I use libre office impress, create a curly bracked, then save the slide to pdf. Then open the pdf with inkscape and copy paste the bracket into your inkscape document you are working with.

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In Inkscape 1.2 in Windows:

  • Open PowerPoint and insert the brace shape from the set of shapes.
  • Copy the shape.
  • Switch to the Inkscape document and paste the shape into Inkscape.
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The smart move would be for Inkscape to include a standard symbols library in the install - like draw.io does. I couldn't believe that a standard symbol like an ellipsis - which is used extensively in Warnier program design diagrams - wasn't included by default. Really, I have to design one myself in the program? Sorry, I don't have time for that sort of fiddling.

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