I want to have a number of items joined together so that it is one thing.  It will be for laser engraving later (that may not matter at all).

I have converted all the items into paths (as far as I am aware) and Inkscape says they are paths when I click on them.

But I cannot get them to connect, I guess I could try and do it by hand, cutting nodes and joining them, but I know I am missing something and I don't know what.

It is probably too simple for most of you, but I just don't know what I am doing wrong, and would like to know for the future.

Here is what I am trying to join together.  By the way, I am not saying this is the finished object, I would want to make the lettering more round and the centre line should continue all the way through.

I have done half of it - cannot work out why I cannot do the other half.

Can you post a print screen of your objects list?

I found that path operations such as union can be tricky/impossible if you are trying to join a path with a group of paths. 

I had a video - but he says he didn´t need it. So here it is again:

Can just upload the file? - I don't know what an object list is.

I don't think I have had any coversations with Polygon.

After I uploaded the video you wrote you have managed your goal. That´s why I take my video down to save space. Then you edited your reply to "I have done half of it ".

Ah - I didn't see the comment or the video. Sorry for the confusion.  As I ask questions I continue to try and work out the problems myself, if I do I would try and delete the question, but I am still having problems and I don't know why because I thought I had done both halves the same - but of course I have not, or it would work.

The video is an attachment in reply#4.

Thank you - when I clicked on the link it didn't come up at first (I think it was a browser thing).  I will watch it now.  Thank you so much for the time and effort you and others on here put in, it is appreciated.

Thank you for the video - it helped me understand where some of the problems lay.  However, I now have a different (or the same - I don't know at this stage) problem.  I have cobined the two rectangles (top and bottom behaind the letters as per the video, now when I try and Union them together, the letters disapear, which I am sure I have read is an order related thing.  I have tried raising them all in the Layers menu - just in case this has something to do with it.  But it didn't help.

That´s why I filled the shapes with colours so I can see the 2 rectangles are hidden by the large shape - I showed how to lower it in the video at sec 7.

I didn't understand that from the video - it could be because I am useless at the moment and trying to learn,  It could be a long process in my case!

Can I confirm, that if items are to be Union they have to be Paths, and the layer that they are on determines which disapears when Union.

It´s important how the parts are stacked in a hierarchy and a color fill is helping here.

I am still have problems - I think I have done what you suggested, but I cannot still get it to work - obviously I have done something wrong, or not done something in the correct order.

I may have to be away from the computer for an hour or so - so please don't think I am being ignorant.

Seems you forgot to Path->Combine the 2 rectangles with the large shape.

Thank you again Polygon, I have combined the two rectangles, but am still having the problem of the text dissapearing.  So I tried raising the text level to the top and trying - same - then tried raising the rectangles to the top and still the same.  I am using the layer menu to do this - am I doing it incorrectly?

I'd start over with the file you first uploaded. Have my video open and follow step by step in slow motion.

No matter what I do when I select the 'text' and the rectangles the text disapears - if I then select the rectangles then the 'text' the same thing happens.  I have even created a new page - copied and pasted the items across and the same thing still happens.

I have no idea how I could explain it better than with a video. At 40 sec I selected the 2 rectangles plus the big outer shape and Path->Combine them. After that I add select all text snippets to Path->Union them. Then add select with the former big combined shape and go Path->Union.

Maybe starting with all fill, opacity 25% and no stroke will give a better visual of the steps?

We had exactly this in word and video already. Video is attached to reply#4 almost 7hs back.