Greetings,

Thank you in advance for your time and input.

Well, I thought I had it figured out.

I have my finished masterpiece. Save to computer as PDF. If I bring up Inkscape>Open file>click on desired .pdf the image comes up on the blank Inkscape page like we all hope and pray for. Perfect world.

When I drag the .pdf file to thumbdrive, the image comes up as Notepad and the algebraic (?) equation of the image. Huh.

Please Mister Wizard.

Well, even though the thumbdrive's primary purpose is probably to save files, it probably does have other "folders". I wonder if you could have accidentally dropped it into the wrong one? Have you tried the traditional Cut/Paste, instead? Or if it's Windows Explorer that you're using, the right-click menu has a Send To option, which I find convenient.

Wait, do you mean you're dragging it from the open Inskcape window? I'm not sure if that should be expected to to work?

Thumbdrives work slightly differently in explorer, including the right click menu being different and autoplay behaviour. My best guess is that pdf preview behaviour on your version of windows (?) on thumbdrive chooses to show you the actual pdf contents, or start thereof. Can you right click on it on the thumbdrive and change icon? I take it that opening it still behaves properly.