I typically work with several images scattered around the "page" (what shows when you press 5). When I opened an svg and a pdf, all that work outside the page is gone!!! This never happened before. I'm new to version .92. Is this something that happens with it? I had been using an old version before.

Is there a way to get the images back again?

Did the file get saved as svg? That will save everything.

If the file is saved as pdf, anything outside the page is discarded and will not be available if the pdf is opened in Inkscape.

Best to "Save a copy as..." when outputting to PDF, and ensure that the svg is saved as svg.

"what shows when you press 5".... That's the shortcut for Zoom to Page, which means it's only showing what's inside the page borders. If all your drawing is outside the borders, then you'll need to zoom back out, to see them.

Maybe there was a change of definition of "page" in some newer version? Maybe page used to include everything, but now it means only to the page border? Or maybe it has something to do with having the page border displayed?

I don't use key shortcuts as much as others, so I had to look that up, to know what you're talking about. But maybe others who do use shortcuts more often, know specifically how it works?

There were no changes to those shortcuts - TD seems spot on here (I don't have any other explanation).

Well we almost always have to do a certain amount of guessing when answering questions. In this case, I never would have guessed that "....I opened an svg and a pdf...." meant that she saved a PDF without saving an SVG.

If all the drawing is outside the page border, and 5 is the shortcut for zoom to page, it makes sense that nothing is showing in the window.

Edit
While maybe there was not any change with the 5 shortcut, I seem to recall the Save drawing vs page option in the PDF dialog since a long time ago (not a recent change either).