Comment 1 for bug 427121

This seems like a duplicate of Bug #307005 in Inkscape: “copy command always does bitmap copy”

With certain X11 settings for the clipboard/pasteboard exchange between X11 applications and native OS X applications copy&paste within Inkscape always puts a bitmap copy into the clipboard instead of the selected vector objects. This could also happen when you paste Inkscape content into SCAL.

Please read ' Copying and pasting in Inkscape creates pixellated images instead of copying the vector objects ' from the FAQ <http://wiki.inkscape.org/wiki/index.php/FAQ#Copying_and_pasting_in_Inkscape_creates_pixellated_images_instead_of_copying_the_vector_objects> if following the instructions solves your copy&paste issue with Inkscape 0.47pre2 on Snow Leopard (which uses X11/XQuartz 2.3.4).

After the changes according to the FAQ - if you need to copy from Inkscape (X11) to OS X, you have to copy twice:
1) copy the objects in Inkscape using 'Ctrl+C'
2) then use the menu bar command 'Edit > Copy' to copy the contents of the X11 clipboard to the OS X Pasteboard
3) change to the OS X application where you want to paste the objects and use 'Cmd+V' to insert the pasteboard contents.