How to Select an Individual Object

If you have a file which you did not create yourself, and you're trying to select an individual object, but you can only select the whole image; there are a few reasons why it might be happening, and few ways to address the problem.  The key to figuring out what to do (and as well, the key to becoming proficient with Inkscape) is to use the status bar.  The status bar is the bar along the bottom of the window.  And for this tutorial, it's the middle part of that bar, where textual information is given, that you need to pay attention to.

  1. First make sure that it's a vector image.  Just because the file format is vector does not mean the image itself is vector.  To find out, first open the image in Inkscape.  Select the image with the Selection tool  None , and look at the status bar.  If it starts with "Image...." that means it's a raster image.
     
    If that is indeed what you find, there will be no way to select any individual part of the image, not with Inkscape.  However, it is possible to convert a raster image to vector.  Inkscape offers 2 ways to do that.  You can either use Inkscape's Pen tool, and "manually" trace the image, to create vector paths.  Or you could auto-trace it using Path menu > Trace Bitmap.  Certain images are better suited for one technique or the other, but it is beyond the scope of this tutorial to explain further, or to give instructions for either of these tools.  Please feel free to visit our forum, where you can share the image and ask for suggestions and additional information.
     
  2. If the first word in the status bar is anything except for "Image...." that means it's a vector file.  If the first word you see is "Group of...." you are having the most common version of this problem.  What you need to do is click Object menu > Ungroup (or use this button on the command bar  None ) (or use the key shortcut, which is Shift + Ctrl + G).  Sometimes, everything in the file is in one group, and you just have to click Ungroup once.
     
    Other times you may have to do this more than once.  Keep clicking until the status bar say "No more groups to ungroup" (or until you don't see the word "group" anywhere in the status bar). Occasionally you might find a file with tens of groups, in which case there is a special extension to start the ungrouping process with one click, and then you just wait for it to finish.  Extensions menu > Arrange > Deep Ungroup.
     
  3. Less common, but still quite possible, is that the entire image is one compound path, made of many subpaths.  For this, the status bar will start "Path...."  It's hard to give instructions to cover all the possible consequences, if this is the case.  You can start by selecting the image, then do Path menu > Break Apart.  That might be all you need to do.
     
    But there's also a chance everything will go black (or some solid color).  If that happens, you can add a stroke (if there isn't one) (add it to everything all at once, while everything is still selected), and remove the fill.  That way, you can see the individual paths, and decide what to do.  If that doesn't work, or you don't know how, please feel free to post a message in our forum, where you can share the SVG file, and ask for help.
     
  4. And there are a few more, much less common issues which might cause this problem -- too many and with too many hypothetical circumstances to try and define them all.  So for anything else, please feel free to post a message in our forum, where you can share the SVG file, and we can examine the file, and sort out the issues.

 

If you did create this file yourself, by importing a raster image and then using Trace Bitmap, probably everything is in a Group after tracing.  You'll just need to ungroup.  Object menu > Ungroup (or use this button on the command bar  None ) (or use the key shortcut, which is Shift + Ctrl + G).

If there's some other situation happening and you just can't figure it out, again, please feel free to post in the forum, where you can share the SVG file with us, we can examine it, and help you figure it out.