Hey all - so I’ve been trying to use some images from Freepik. Once I’ve downloaded them from the website and then uploaded to Inkscape, I’m not finding the image to be easy to manipulate. The layers don’t appear to be locked and ungrouping a selection seems to have no effect. Example: a selection of 16 snowflakes. I can select and outline them all, unfill, and then I have a nice grid of black outlined snowflakes. Except they’re all grouped together. I’ve gotten around it once by copy/pasting and deleting the extras, but I feel like it should be easier than that. Am I missing a crucial step? Also, working on a mac if that makes any difference.
Thanks for any insights!
Do you have a link or copy of the file to post so we can take a look? I don’t use inkscape, but at least I can check out the file to see if there’s anything obvious.
One thing I’ve noticed in Inkscape is that it tends to load everything in one layer to start with. You can transfer objects to individual layers and work with them one at a time that way.
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Just guessing, but it also may be that the objects aren’t grouped, they are actually combined together and are acting like one large image instead of a bunch of individual pieces. Programs use different terms for the same thing, but in Corel I would select the image and use a “break curve apart” command. That would release the different pieces. Be careful though, it may also break apart the pieces of the snowflakes as well and you may have to re-combine them back together.
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In Inkscape it’s Path > Break Apart.
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One way to select out a combined path that is spread over different objects is to use the edit node tool and do a window select around one object. You can copy that one object and then have a single one to work with. Alternately, you can window select all the duplicate objects and leave you with only one.
Thanks for the suggestions! I’ll try them today when I get home from work. I’ll also attempt to upload a file! : )
I just had something similar happen to me last night with a bunch of snowflakes. I selected all the objects, Path–>Break Apart, and then I could ungroup them. I could then move each of them and then combine their parts (Path–>Combine) and group them individually. Saved me a ton of time.