How to crop an SVG (clip paths issue)?

First off, I am using Inkscape.

I bought a circular design of some birds in some flowers that I want to engrave onto a rectangular bookmark (https://creativemarket.com/TommyandTillyDesign/2814838-Love-Birds-Foliage-Wedding-SVG).

I had the bird design go beyond the edges of the bookmark, and then just figured I’d crop the sides off. Oh how mistaken I was…

I understand now that what I did was create a clip path, and that GlowForge doesn’t do clip paths. Fair enough. But then, how do I crop off the edges from the circle so they’ll fit into the rectangular bookmark?

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One of two things you can do is to just place the engrave down where you want it, then put the unfilled cut rectangle right over the top of it. The cut is going to trim off the part you don’t want. (It will engrave the whole thing first, but you can cut right through an engraving.) :slightly_smiling_face:

The other way is a little more complex. You can put a filled rectangle over the top of the area you want to get rid of, select both, and then choose Path>Difference.

BUT you will likely have to do it several times for each unconnected shape that is overlaid by the rectangle. (Not really sure, Inkscape is not my main.)

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It should work in Inkscape (it does in Illustrator); create your clipping mask and then rasterize it with the graphic, which will turn your vector graphic into a raster image (which is fine).

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Here is a topic that discusses clip paths and masks with some links to help deal with them and understand them.

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Thanks for the answers, everyone! I’m going to close this thread - if the problem reoccurs, go ahead and post a new topic. Thanks for letting us know about this!