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Whenever I copy and paste something in Inkscape the result is a pixelated image and not the original object. For example a copied and pasted rectangle cannot be edited as a rectangle anymore and gets blurry if I zoom in.

I am working on OSX 10.10.1 and X11 2.7.7.

nnn
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3 Answers3

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This has to do with the clipboard and pasteboard syncing of OSX and X11. As pointed out in the Inkscape FAQ you can prevent this by unchecking X11 preferences > Pasteboard: "Update Pasteboard when CLIPBOARD changes". Downside is that you cannot copy anything from Inkscape to other OSX programs anymore. From OSX to X11 should still be possible.

If you use duplicate instead of copy and paste the problem doesn't appear in the first place, so you can keep the pasteboard syncing.

nnn
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  • "Downside is that you cannot copy anything from Inkscape to other OSX programs anymore" - who would want that feature? LOL – GeneCode Feb 09 '19 at 07:16
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    Good for OSX users. How about Crostini users on a Chromebook. This is not only an osx problem. Using Control D is also not a solution since we need to copy from one document to another. – Joshua Robison Jun 28 '21 at 07:44
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Duplicate and then what? Duplicate and Paste just creates a raster copy of the vector object. However, after many trials and errors, I found that Duplicate and then Paste In Place results in a vector-to-vector copy.

Stephen Rauch
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Oliver Clozoff
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    Ctr-D (Duplicate) places the duplicate right on top of the original. No need to paste. Just drag the duplicate to where you want the copy. – JAC Sep 11 '19 at 14:22
  • @JAC: That would not help because you can´t copy it to another layer. – Coliban Jul 14 '20 at 19:34
  • @Coliban: After duplicate, under the Layer menu select Move selection to layer ... – JAC Jul 15 '20 at 14:00
  • Is there a way to quickly paste the duplicated object(s) if the destination is in another document that's concurrently open, not just another layer? The lengthy work-around seems to be to save entire document containing the source object as a new SVG file, delete everything except the source object, re-save, and import this intermediate into the destination file. thanks! – curious lab rat Jan 12 '21 at 13:15
  • obviously not an answer when you are trying to paste vectors between two different documents – Joshua Robison Jun 28 '21 at 07:42
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Use Ctrl+D

Pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste will create a bitmap image for the copy. To create a vector copy, you can make a selection and then press Ctrl+D. The D is for Duplicate.

Community
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Suragch
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