Notes about Inkscape, a vector graphics program.
Selection
Use the selection tool to select objects. This is the plain black arrow, top left. It’ll say “Select and transform objects” when you hover over it.
To select objects, drag around them.
Nothing selected?.. Ungroup
If this doesn’t appear to do anything, then the entire page is probably grouped. If you click in the middle of the page and you see “Group of 123 objects in layer …” or similar then the whole page is grouped.
Ungroup everything via Object -> Ungroup.
You should now be able to drag around objects to select them.
Reference: Help! Can’t select objects
Cropping
To crop an image, you draw a rectangle over it, select all and then clip to the rectangle. Sounds simple, but it’s a pain in the a*se for someone new to Inkscape.
- Select the rectangle tool. It’ll say “Create rectangles and squares” when you hover over it. Or press F4.
- Make sure that your rectangle will be transparent, so that you can see where you’re drawing it. Do this by dropping the opacity to 50%. You’ll find the opacity setting in the bottom toolbar - look for the
O:which says “Opacity, %” when you hover over it. - Draw a rectangle over your picture.
- Select the arrow icon. It’ll say “Select and transform objects” when you hover over it. Or press F1.
- Drag around everything that you’d like to be cropped. Or just select all via Edit -> Select All.
- Object -> Clip -> Set.
Your picture should have been cropped to the rectangle you drew.
Reference: Resize & Crop Using Inkscape
Gotchas
Scrollbars disappeared
If the document’s scrollbars have disappeared, so you’re left with only a bottom scrollbar that scrolls the colours, then chances are you accidentally turned them off.
Turn scrollbars on via View -> Show/Hide -> Scrollbars, or ctrl-b.
