inkscape help needed

[danny_galaga]

ive just downloaded inkscape and im finding it hard to find good beginners guides on the net. most of them assume youve used adobe before. i havent used anything other than the bitmap editor. at this stage i need to edit some bitmap images. bitmap because it looks like you cant import .ai files to inkscape. bmp is fine for what i need it for but im having trouble even finding out how to remove a white border from a bmp image so i can join it another bmp image with a white border.

so any ideas on good beginners guides that are for actual beginners and not photshop veterans?

[danny_galaga]

well, thanks for the flurry of answers but ive worked out a retarded way of getting what i needed.

1: open ai file in adobe reader
2: print screen
3: paste into bitmap
4: open bitmap in inkscape
5: rotate (thats all i wanted to do, rotate by some number of degrees)
6: you guessed it- print screen!
7: paste into bitmap...

[patrickl]

well, thanks for the flurry of answers

From the online documentation:

Illustrator can import Inkscape SVG and export SVG which Inkscape usually opens without problems (there's one issue to be aware of). Conversely, Inkscape opens Adobe's AI (since version 9) and PDF files (with some limitations: gradient meshes are approximated by lattices of small paths, and transparency modes don't work). Inkscape can also export its documents as PDF.

So at the very least, SVG should be a possible format to use for converting.

I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve, but if you want to print the result then using a print screen is probably not going to work.

BTW their site also has some tutorials. The Basic tutorial sounds like a good place to start.

:edit: The other tutorials on Inkscape User Documentation look ok too. Why do you say they are only for photoshop (Illustrator?) veterans?

[danny_galaga]

well, when i go to import a file it only lists the jpg and bmp images in my folder, but not the .ai . like i say, i did it the retarded way (and yes, the print screen method listed above got me through)

[patrickl]

I guess you used an import bitmap function or something. Maybe File Open would allow you to open SVG or AI fiels. Anyway. Good that you got it fixed with all our combined efforts