Inkscape

cannot change color of rectangle after copy/paste

Asked by kevin

On MacOSX 10.7 lion

I F4 created a rectangle.
I ctrl-c copied the rectangle
I ctrl-v pasted the rectangle

Select the new rectangle
I ctrl-shift-f [Object/Fill&Stroke] for the Object.
I cannot change the fill color on the rectangle

Select the original rectangle
I ctrl-shift-f [Object/Fill&Stroke] for the Object.
I CAN change the fill color on the rectangle

This is very weird, and frustrating. :)
Not sure what the point of a copy is if you cannot edit it.
I did try to Unlink Clone... just in case, but of course I didn't create a clone, I created a copy. It didn't work.

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Best su_v (suv-lp) said : 		#1

>Not sure what the point of a copy is if you cannot edit it.

Select the pasted copy and read the message in the status line: if it says 'Image XX x YY: embedded in layer …" you are affected by a known conflict between X11/Xquartz and applications like Inkscape and FontForge: copied vector objects are pasted as bitmap images. Please read
<http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Copying_and_pasting_in_Inkscape_creates_pixellated_images_instead_of_copying_the_vector_objects>
and change the X11 preferences as described there.

You don't have to restart Inkscape or X11 (the change takes effect immediately), but you will have to recreate the copies in order to have them stay vector objects when pasted again.

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kevin (n-nwspam-x) said : 		#2

I did notice that if I use Ctrl-D instead of ctrl-C, that I _can_ edit the colors!
Not sure what the difference between duplicate and copy is... but that seems to work.
I feel... strange... ignoring ctrl-C though, since it's the intuitive choice.

I'll look at your X11 tweak, good to know!
Wonder if there's a way to check that in the app and warn the user.

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kevin (n-nwspam-x) said : 		#3

Thanks ~suv, that solved my question.