How to Create a Custom Color Palette in Inkscape

In this help article, I’ll show you how to create and import custom color palettes in Inkscape to use in your graphic design compositions.

Use Colors From an Existing Composition or Design

If you already have a design with colors or have a document open that contains the colors you want to use (i.e. in shape fills/strokes, in your text color, etc.) you can simply export your document as a GPL file (which stands for GIMP Palette, the palette file format Inkscape uses by default) and those colors will automatically be placed into a color palette.

1. Locate Your User Palettes Folder

To quickly create a color palette using an existing design, first start by locating the user Palettes folder in Inkscape.

To do this, click the Preferences icon in the Commands bar or go to Edit>Preferences. 

Go to the “System” section of the preferences window, then find the “User palettes” folder directory listed here. Click the “Open” button. This will open a File Explorer window (Windows) or a Finder window (MAC) inside the User Palettes folder. Keep this window open.

2. Save Your Document as a .GPL File

Returning to Inkscape, exit out of the Preferences window. Then, save your document as a .GPL file by going to File>Save As.

You can either save the .GPL file directly to the User Palettes folder (if you remembered the file directory location) or simply save it somewhere where you can easily access it. In my case, I’ll save the file in my “Inkscape Course Assets” folder. 

Name your color palette – this is the name that will show up in Inkscape later – then, from the “Save as type” dropdown, selected “GIMP Palette.” Click “Save.” 

3. Add Your GPL File to the User Palettes Folder

Open a new File Explorer window if using Windows (you can right-click on the File Explorer icon in the taskbar at the bottom of your computer screen) or Finder Window if using MAC and navigate to where you just saved your .GPL file. 

Next, click and drag the .GPL file into your User Palettes folder (which should still be open in the other File Explorer window we opened earlier). 

4. Close and Reopen Inkscape

Once you’ve added the .GPL file to the User Palettes folder, you’ll need to close and reopen Inkscape in order for the changes to take effect. 

Upon reopening Inkscape, navigate to the bottom right corner of the user interface and click the hamburger icon (small icon with three horizontal lines). You should now see your new palette listed here. Click on the palette to display it as the active palette in your document.

Import Colors from a Free AI Color Generator

If you don’t already have a composition with colors and need to start from scratch, you can use free AI-based tools like Huemint or Coolors (Coolors lets you generate up to 5 colors for free, otherwise you need the paid version) to come up with a color scheme. Once you have a color scheme, you can copy the colors into Inkscape and save them as a color palette. 

1. Generate Your Colors

Using the services noted above, generate colors to use in your color palette.

2. Bring Your Colors Into Inkscape

Once your colors are generated, you’ll need to copy the colors from the generator into Inkscape. There are a few ways to do this, but the easiest way is to click on the color swatch and copy the hex code assigned to that color.

Once you’ve copied the hex code, open a new document in Inkscape by going to File>New.

Next, grab the Rectangle tool and draw a random rectangle on your composition.

In the lower left-hand corner of the user interface, double-click on the “Fill” color for the rectangle (red arrow in the above image) to bring up the Fill and Stroke dialog. Then, paste the hex code you copied earlier into the “RGBA” field of this dialog (green arrow). Your rectangle will now reflect the color you generated in Huemint/Coolors.

Now, grab the Selector tool and click on the rectangle. Use ctrl+d (cmd+d on a MAC) to duplicate the rectangle, then move the duplicate rectangle over so that it doesn’t obstruct the original.

Repeat the previous steps to change the fill color of each new rectangle using another color from the color generator, until all your colors have been added to Inkscape. 

3. Save Your Document As a .GPL

With all your colors imported into Inkscape, you can now go back to step 1 from the first part of this article and follow the steps to save your document as a .GPL file to your User Palettes folder.