Thank you for being patient and not passive aggressive. I really appreciate this. I tried to do the steps you had asked above earlier. I have had to step away several times due to children, family leaving for the holidays and needing kids bags packed, feeding my children, etc. let me see if I can do this again.
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file:///C:/Users/Ben/Desktop/This%20is%20ridiculous.svg
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Just drag it.
That is a blank SVG file, there are no paths or objects in that design.
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Except…because I’m new at this you ASSUME I’m trying to do everything except do what is asked…is that what you would do when you needed help…yes, any intelligent human would purposely set you up, right?!
I thought these forums were for help? Not passive aggressive behavior because someone isn’t as fluent in this as you?? Maybe some kindness and patience…or say nothing at all, given your comment isn’t helpful? Great job…
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You might want to just ignore anything you don’t see as helpful, we tend to be pretty tribal around here.
Also tone is easily lost in typed words.
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Well, you got the SVG uploaded in the one. That’s a big blank page though. If the original bitmap was still in the SVG, it get’s stripped out when you post in on this Discourse Forum.
Maybe it would be good to start with something different. You want to do the states. Here is that SVG that you can use that was in the other topic you had. It is the Wikimedia commons.
I have broken it up into individual states that you can now cut out. 
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honestly, i’m not sure why you don’t start with a vector file to begin with. there are tons and tons of vector state outlines files on the web. here’s an easy one to start with.
https://publicdomainvectors.org/en/free-clipart/Outline-map-of-American-states/4642.html
then you don’t have to worry about trying to convert a bitmap, which brings its own issues and takes more work.
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I’m sorry you feel that way. I was actually trying to support one of the many people here who were doing their dead level best to help you, despite being essentially yelled for their troubles.
Once your issue is resolved to your satisfaction( you now have a group of very talented people helping you), I respectfully request that you reread your OP and consider how you might react to someone who asks for help, the proceeds to dictate exactly how said help must be provided.
Again my apologies for offending you by offering support to a friend. I’ve deleted the offending post and wish you the best of luck.
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I wasn’t sure if this had been answered yet and wanted to make sure you understood. “Dirty” just refers to there being issues with the image that will need “cleaning” up and fixed for it to work well. For example, in the image you posted you can see that Texas is missing a pice of the outline. To clean it up you’d have to go in and close that missing gap. Dirty can also refer to there being little stray nodes (the little anchor points used to draw vector lines) or littler ransom lines that shouldn’t be there. If someone tells you a file is “clean”, they mean that it will work well and there are no issues you’ll have to fix in it.
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Well, that I can explain. Videos shorter than 10 minutes cannot be monetized, so creators are incentivized to drag things out and make garbage that is hard to watch.
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That would make my life easier. Unfortunately, I started a business with a different machine, making this map. Changing the format would create major issues. I wish I could do that…I think I would have less grey hair. 
Thank you, I appreciate the knowledge. I believe my image is dirty because it is a scanned image. I will close up Texas. I figure once I am able to continue manufacturing these, I will work on cleaning it up and improving the overall quality. Right now, my business is at a stand still until I get this image to cut. It is definitely the wrong time of year to try to learn the ins and outs of a new machine and programs. 
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Thank you. I appreciate your help. I posted the jpeg files below and the file after I followed the directions given in a youtube video on how to turn it in to a vector. The “vector” image I uploaded here, I am being told it is not a vector image…even though I followed the directions exactly on said youtube video. I don’t know I am saving it wrong, or if there is a step the youtube video did not cover, but for some reason it is unable to cut. I looked all over fb and the getting started videos on the glowforge app and from what I can tell, I followed all the steps necessary. Because I can’t find any more information, this is why I said I am getting zero help in my original post and turned to the intelligence of this community for the help I am so desperately looking for. So far, no one has been able to tell me what I am doing wrong to turn the jpeg into a cut file. Do you, by chance, know how to do this? Thanks again for all your help. It is greatly appreciated.
Thank you for this information. I didn’t know that you would need my file to understand where I am at. My apologies. I uploaded the files below.
I appreciate your response. I reread my original post. I said I was getting zero help (not from this community of intelligent and knowledgeable individuals, but from the youtube videos and the getting started videos and verbiage.
Being so new at this, it is hard to dictate exactly what I need from the individuals in this forum when I know nothing other than needing to turn a jpeg in to a cut file using inkscape. I wish I was able to better communicate the necessities of what I need, but I am very green at this. This was, in fact, the wrong time of year to switch machinery with all the orders I have waiting and being at a stand still until I have this resolved.
Again, my apologies for my lack of ability to further communicate.
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I can’t post screenshots but I can tell you step by step what I have done, starting all over. I opened a PDF of the image in inkscape. I selected the image. I went up to Path and in that category I selected the 3rd one called trace bitmap. It opened a small window. I changed my brightness setting to .54 and clicked ok. I then closed that window and tried to move the image to the side (the vector image on top)
Currently, there is still only the one image, not two. Do you know why it didn’t create the 2nd Vector image? Is it because I started with a PDF?
Hi there! I’m not an Inkscape user so I can’t tell you how that’s supposed to work. However, as an Adobe Illustrator user, I do have access to “trace and expand” which sounds to be the same thing. It seems you’re following the instructions, but maybe you’re missing just a small step somewhere. If Inkscape is anything like Adobe, there will be a lot of official manuals on how to do things as well! Here’s one, for example: https://inkscape.org/en/doc/tutorials/tracing/tutorial-tracing.html
I hope you get it figured out soon. Since you said you super needed the states to be the exact cutouts of the jpegs you shared, I went ahead and did a little work in Illustrator and made this file for you. Just right-click on the image and save it as an SVG! I have it sized to fit within a 12x20 cut space. I’m unsure why you need them to be exactly this shape but I hope this helps you out a little bit.
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WOW!!! THANK YOU!!! I really appreciate you doing this. Is there a way I can repay your kindness?
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