Comment 4 for bug 208217

Rygle,

Printing could be a Windows specific issue, but as long as you find similar problems with the Ps and Pdf output it is more likely a general issue. (and since 0.45 only had print as bitmap on Windows it is no regression either)

Problem is probably that Inkscape doesn't translate blur/masks/clips correctly to cairo operators.

Currently there are two svg to cairo converters in Inkscape. I think the plan is to only have one in 0.47.

Save as "PDF via Cairo" uses the old printer backend (sp_item_invoke_print). While both printing as vectors and Save as "Postscript via Cairo" uses the newer CairoRenderer class which should be a little more capable. The printer backend doesn't support clips and masks for instance. See: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/169755

If you open extension/init.cpp and search for CairoRendererPdfOutput and CairoRendererOutput you can activate Save as "Cairo PDF experimental" and "Cairo PNG" which both use the CairoRenderer class. When the Png looks okay but the Pdf or Ps doesn't you might have found a cairo issue, otherwise it is more likely an Inkscape issue.

Can you find a very simple example to show when clipping/masking works and when it doesn't?