What is a clone?

Put simply; a clone is a copy of an object that will change if the original clone’s geometry (that is, nodes, curves, fills, strokes, and so on) is changed. Clones are scalable, rotatable, and movable but are not editable in the same way as the original, taking all their geometry and most styling from the original object.

As an example, let’s make a star shape and then clone it by selecting Edit > Clone > Create Clone. This will give us a new star exactly the same as the first star, and the Status Bar tells us this new copy is a clone of the object. Now when we edit the original to give it more points, the clone automatically changes to match, as shown in Figure 10.1.

Figure 10.1 – Creating a clone and changing the original geometry

So, what if we want more than one clone? We can create a new clone by selecting Edit > Clone > Create Clone for each new clone, but we can also just copy/paste or use the...