Inplace cropping of images

[Bug Importer]

I just recently dropped Windows for Linux and, since then, I have
been looking for a program that would be able to substitute M$
Visio/Adobe Illustrator for the creation of composite figures. For a
composite figure I mean a file containing two or more images
layed out on a grid with added labels. These images are the
source of most scientific information (together with graphs and
tables).

A very neat feature of the latest M$ Visio and Powerpoint is to be
able to do basic image editing on an imported figure. For the
sake of making composite figures, the most used to is inplace
cropping. I used to just click on the crop tool and then "resize" a
figure of interest. Instead of actually resizing it the image was
just cropped. I believe SVG can implement such a thing. It would
be great if this feature could be implemented in InkScape.

Another feature that I am missing quite a bit (although not as
critical as the one I mentioned above) is the 'notebook' interface
of M$ Visio (similar to OOffice Draw). It is nice to have several
drawings saved in a single file (each one corresponding to a
figure in a paper, for example) and be able to export them as
PDF or PNG with the click of a button for use, e.g., in LaTeX via
\includegraphics.

Thank you very much for your consideration,

Edoardo ''Dado'' Marcora

[Buliabyak-users (buliabyak-users)]

You can already do that by converting the image to a
pattern-fill rectangle (Edit > Objects to pattern), then
switching to Node tool (F2) and dragging the top left and
bottom right handles of the rectangle. The bitmap will be
cropped. If you want more complex crop shapes, convert the
rectangle to path (Ctrl+Shift+C) and use the Node tool to
move/add/delete nodes.

A better solution will be available when we implement crop
and mask tools. They are being worked on.

We don't have tabs but you can still open any number of
documents at once. As for exporting, you can do batch export
using Inkscape's command line options by writing a simple
script. See `man inkscape' for options.