is there any way to open a pdf in inkscape? i have a bunch of pdf and psd files that i'd like to work with.

Use File > Import command

I don't think you can import PSD files, and even if you could you would unlikely have the editing cpabilities you might have hoped for. Your best bet it to convert your PSD files to PDF and import that instead.

i've tried to import both psd and pdf and i get an error: "Failed to load the requested file /Users/iyaboosiapem/Documents/Iyabo's stuff/buttons/on pic paper template.psd"

any suggestions?

PSD's won't work. But you get that error with PDF also?

yes, it happens with pdfs too, but i don't have many of those. i also don't have photoshop anymore so i can't convert the psd to pdf.

A couple of things you can do determine if it's an issue with Inkscape or the PDF's.

1. Get someone else to try and open the PDFs
2. Open a different PDF (preferably from a completely different source)

It might be that your PDF's are protected from edits.

What Inkscape version are you using? Im on the new development version from couple of days ago and importing pdf works ok (you can only import one page at the time but you can choose which page to import)