I am writing a book with technical graphics that were originally created in Illustrator. I recently had to change to a computer with only Inkscape 1.0.1 (3bc2e813f5, 2020-09-07) .  Some .ai drawings import well into Inkscape and some do not because the text letters look ok on screen but do not cut-and-paste between Inkscape files. 

My current workflow is to change an .ai file in Inkscape as needed and then export a PNG file. Then I call the PNG file from the LaTex document so the image is in the PDF file that will go to the printer.

• Can Inkscape be used to do this or am I going to have to send the PNG files to another computer and program (e.g., Photoshop) to prep their dpi and size for printing? 
• Will the text-import problem go away during the export to PNG so that Photoshop could read the files? The images are OK in the LaTex PDF except for dpi and CMYK issues.
• If I start a new image and draw it all using Inkscape, how should I optimally set up Inkscape attributes?
• If I start a new image as above, is there any way to avoid having to manually change each image file to prep it for book printing?

Any suggestions to help answer my questions will be deeply appreciated. I need to make my workflow as efficient as possible, and I have learned to prefer Inkscape over Illustrator for doing new drawings. Thanks!

Hi Martha... I didn't really understand your points, but I'll try to share some of my experiences with Inkscape, printing, Illustrator and Photoshop.

1. SVG and PNG are web format and do not support CMYK space colors.
2. If you save your artworks in PDF, Inkscape will retain the right size for printing. If you are using effects or filters you must export those at 300dpi in the dialog windows.
3. Use Ghostscript to convert from RGB PDF to CMYK PDF or let pdfLaTeX to convert them for you.
4. Plain SVG can be imported in Scribus and exported as CMYK PDF.
5. Krita and ImageMagick can convert your PNGs in TIFF CMYK.
 

Scribus, Ghostscript, Krita, ImageMagick and LaTeX/TeX are available natively on any Linux distribution but are also available for Windows.

Further reading:

https://codewideopen.blogspot.com/2010/10/inkscape-does-support-cmyk.html

https://inkscape-manuals.readthedocs.io/en/latest/custom-colors.html