Hi, I am (very) new to Inkscape. My previous (limited) experience has been with Illustrator and it is not serving me well here. I've read up on how to cut shapes in the FAQ/Notes - I can get it to work for very simple shapes on 1 layer, but not for anything more complicated 

I get an .svg file generated from an application. The image has irregular boundaries, is much bigger than what I need to print and the selection I want to print is not oriented to the original image axes.

After the image is ready for printing, I still need access to the layers in the printed area. Field updates will be edited into the appropriate layer. Ultimately, these updates will be rolled back into the data set the app uses for generating the initial .svg file.

What I'm trying to do looks like the attached file.

What I've tried is

1. to create, on a new top layer, the area that I want to print, then try to use this as a cutting path (using intersection) on all the lower layers. Even with those layers selected nothing seems to happen.

2. to put a rectangle a1 sized on a new top layer, then try to grab everything and rotate it so the A1 sheet is parallel to the x-y axes. Again, I can rotate the top rectangle, but don't seem to be able to rotate the underlying layers.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, and thankyou for your time.

Cheers, mjw.

I would orient all elements to a vertical A1 page and save as pdf. The pdf will not show/print the elements outside of the page.

Steps:

• Enable snapping to rotation centers and corner nodes.
• Snap vertical guideline to A1 rectangle lower left corner.
• Menu: Edit>Select all in all Layers.
• Click selected objects to show rotation center.
• Snap rotation center to corner & guide.
• Rotate all objects until A1 rectangle top node snaps vertical.
• Select only the rectangle.
• Menu Edit>Resize page to selection.
• Hide rectangle.
• Save copy as PDF.
• Undo to restore the orientation if needed.

(I made a screen recording, but it is a huge file.)

Hi Tyler, Okay, many thanks for the quick and detailed response. I'll give it a go this evening and post an update. Best regards, Michael.

Hi Tyler, It worked to the point where I got a good quality usable print. I could not get the snaps parts to work. I got the vertical guideline, but could not get it to snap to the A1 lower left corner. I was able to select everything on all layers, find the rotation centre and then drag that to the corner and guide by eye, but no snap showed up (and yes, I did have snaps enabled, or at least I think so). I rotated until the side of the A1 rectangle lined up with the guideline, again by eye. Then selected the only the rectangle on the top layer, resized page to selection (worked a treat, great, thanks, no way I would have thought to do this), left the rectangle in place because I would like it to print as well, save a copy as .pdf, opened it in Adobe PDF and printed a copy (6 sheets on my A3 printer. 

Thanks very much for your help. I'll play with snaps on some simpler drawings, to get a bit of experience in how they work and see what I might be doing wrong.  Cheers, Michael.