I've read (and experienced) the bug on copying and pasting in MaxOS:
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Bug reports:
Bug #307005 in Inkscape: “[OS X] copy & paste inserts a bitmap copy instead of the vector object”
XQuartz ticket #403: "Copy/Paste in Inkscape pastes bitmaps"
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Does this mean I'm out of luck if I want to copy and paste between two different drawings?
What I want to do is apply the same set of annotations to multiple plots - ideally I'd do them once, then copy/paste them to each of the new (imported bitmap) plots from another program. So, Duplicate doesn't work (as far as I can tell). Ideas? I don't want to change the X11 setting as I have several other X11 programs; I suppose I could uncheck it to copy/paste in Inkscape and then re-check it again for general use.

Thanks in advance.

Does this post help viewtopic.php?f=5&t=5352&p=23044#p23044?

Sorry, I probably wasn't clear - I saw the X11 workaround changing the pasteboard preferences. I'm trying to avoid changing them back and forth because I need to be able to paste between OSX and X11 in other programs. I suppose the only thing to do is wait for the fix.

jblocher wrote:Does this mean I'm out of luck if I want to copy and paste between two different drawings?

No. Changing the pasteboard settings as described in the FAQ and in bug #307005 allows copying of vector objects within Inkscape and between different Inkscape windows while only disabling automatic syncing from the clipboard of X11 to the pasteboard of Mac OS X (one direction).

jblocher wrote:I don't want to change the X11 setting as I have several other X11 programs

Have you actually tested the recommended change (aka workaround)?

With the changed X11 preference (uncheck "Update Pasteboard when CLIPBOARD changes") you still can

1. copy without limitations within and between X11 applications.
2. copy without limitations from the Mac OS X pasteboard to X11 applications.
3. copy content from X11 applications to native OS X applications in two steps:
   1. within X11 applications use 'Ctrl+C' to copy content to the X11 clipboard
   2. from the X11 clipboard to the OS X pasteboard use the 'Copy' command in the 'Edit' menu on the X11 menubar (Cmd+C)
   3. Paste the content into the native OS X application with 'Cmd+V'

If you are still not convinced that copying within X11 applications is not adversely affected, you can change the X11 preferences on-the-fly: no need to restart X11 or the application running under X11, the change takes effect immediately:

1. open the preferences pane and change the setting,
2. copy and paste within Inkscape and between Inkscape windows as needed,
3. change the setting back to the default
4. continue your usually workflow

Note: in the end, this is not a bug in Inkscape but an acknowledged problem of X11/Xquartz. If you need further confirmation about the impact of disabling that one direction of automatic syncing, consider asking on the official X11-users mailing list hosted by Apple.

I had tried it and had some problems that I thought were related - I'll give it another try, though. I'm struggling a bit with X11, I think, so perhaps it has more to do with that. Thanks for the X11 links.

Try setting X11 preferences as described in http://javatip.com/2010/06/tools/copying-between-x11-applpication-and-mac-windows/ post.

vadym wrote:Try setting X11 preferences as described in http: //javatip.com/2010/06/tools/copying-between-x11-applpication-and-mac-windows/ post.

No. One of the recommended setting is exactly what breaks copy&paste inside and between Inkscape windows.

The website recommends to activate 'sync_clipboard_to_pasteboard' by directly editing the plist file containing the X11 preference settings. Not only do current X11 versions have those settings available via Preference pane, following that advice is counterproductive to solving or working around Inkscape's problem with the Apple-provided X11/Xquartz: activating that specific direction of the syncing service (X11 clipboard > OS X pasteboard) causes the problem of this topic ("Copy/Paste in MacOS with X11 - question on known bug").