Picture does not print correctly, cant edit paths

[ik91h]

Hello all,

I have been working on a colored die with some formulas on its sides. The result is pretty much how I want it with one big caveat: Whenever I print (or take a look at the print preview), the picture looks wrong, specifically one "<" sign suddenly has a box around it.

I would like to fix this issue, but I really don't know how. I tried to get the path of the corresponding part of the formula. Unfortunately, the object is show as a "Rectangle; clipped"  (which is true, I clipped the formulas to the sides of the die) and whenever I convert the object to a path I only get the vertices of the clipping rectangle.

How can I fix the print version of the picture? How can I convert the clipped object to a path (if that is required to fix the image)? Thanks in advance

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

I'm not very informed about printing issues.  Is there any chance that's just showing on the preview, and would not actually be printed that way?

When I take apart the SVG file, for some reason, that character is individually clipped.  I have no idea why.  But either the darker rectangle is not actually going to print, or you could just remove that clip and probably fix it.

Did you create the file?  I mean, do you know enough to remove that clip?

Oh, I see it's a Symbol.  I still don't know why it's clipped, but it looks like you might be able to use the opposite symbol, and flip it around.  You know, if it's less-than-equal-to, then you could use greater-than-equal-to and just flip it horizontal (while the text is still horizontal, of course).

I'm going to hold off explaining how to do it, in case you already know.  But if you don't, just ask.

[ik91h]

Thanks for the welcome The issue does indeed show up both in the preview and in the actual print.

I created the picture myself in the following way: I rendered the formulas using latex and imported the postscript files into inkscape. I then drew the die as a collection of rectangles and clipped each formula to the corresponding rectangles (duplicating rectangles and formulas several times).

Since the colors of the symbols should be determined by the rectangle containing the symbols I clipped the formulas and applied colors to the resulting symbols. If there is an alternative (easier) way to achieve the effect I would be happy to hear it. Simply undoing the clipping at this point would introduce multiple duplicates of the formulas with different colors, which is not what I want.

I don't really know why the problem only shows up in printing / print preview, but to troubleshoot the issue, I would like to examine the actual paths. Problem is, I can only get the path of the clipping rectangle, which does not help me in understanding the problem. Is it possible to convert the clipped path to a simple path? If yes, how? Or is it possible to access and modify the underlying (unclipped) formula? How can I break this complicated shape up into simpler pieces?

The reason that I am hesitant to remove a symbol and duplicate another is that the alignment is correct and I don't want to mess it up...

[Moini]

You can also turn them to path (if they are symbols, do Edit > Clone > Unlink clone, then also might need to do Path > Object to Path) and then use Path > Intersection with a duplicate of the die square to really cut everything off that goes beyond the die square. Clipping often causes print issues.

[brynn]

Yes, I can see how the file is made.  I just wasn't sure if you had made it, and if so, you could probably access that symbol, and release the clip.  But it sounds like you might not be sure how?  Ok, here's how.

 -- select the yellow text
 -- Object menu > Clip > Release
 -- deselect everything
 -- select the text
 -- Ungroup
 -- deselect everything
 -- select the problematic symbol (notice that the status bar identifies it as clipped)

 -- Ungroup (watch the status bar to see that it's not longer identified as clipped) (For some reason (which really annoys me) ungrouping will automatically release the clip and delete the clipping path.  (although it's convenient in this case)  If you needed to save the clipping path, you would Release the clip instead of Ungrouping.)

 -- now go back out the same way you came in
 -- select all the black text
 -- Group
 -- hold Shift while you add the yellow square to the selection
 -- Object menu > Clip > Set

(Interesting -- I didn't know it was possible to perform a clip, when the clipping path is below the object to be clipped (in z-order).  And further, I didn't know it would change the color of the object being clipped!  I can see where that would be useful.....if you know about it, of course.)

Hhmmm....   I wonder if having the clipping path below the text could be causing the clipping path on the symbol the be dark when printed??  Let's see if I have access to a print preview, even though I don't have a printer attached....

Guess not.  Well anyway, Moini's right about clipping and printing.  And you're right, that the clipped symbol should not be causing a problem.

[Moini]

Ctrl+click will select the symbol right away (or just using the node tool), ignoring any groups. Removing the clip would still be needed, though.

[brynn]

When I used Ctrl + click, it selected the symbol.  But it was somehow....inside the clip.  I mean, the status bar did not report the clip, and instead only reported being inside a group.  And I wasn't sure which group I was inside of.  In any case, neither ungroup or release clip worked.

Probably the Objects dialog would have been easier?  I'm not sure.