I am a brand new Inkscape user - only downloaded it a few hours ago. Wanted something more robust than Paint to do a few small-time graphics projects at work. I am not a graphic designer by trade. When I open a new canvas, there is a rectangle in the center of the canvas that cannot be selected or deleted. I have tried opening different types of documents and clicking every delete button I can find, but nothing works. I feel as though I am missing something really obvious. Any help? A screenshot of what I'm talking about is attached.

Welcome to the forums.

Yes, you are missing something obvious. That rectangle is the outline of the document. It should change size with different sizes of documents. To change its properties, select File ► Document Properties... (Shift+Ctrl+D) and when the panel pops up, select the Page tab. Under Border, unselect "Show page border" and "Show border shadow". The rectangle should disappear.

The page border is important, because in certain situations, only what is inside the page border will show up. So unless you use "Resize page to content" you may need to enable the page border now and then, to make sure your image is inside the border. Note that the page border will never show when viewing the SVG in a viewer, or on the internet, or if converted to another format, even if you leave it visible on the canvas. It's really just a guide for convenience.

Also, part of the reason you see it as a rectangle, is because Inkscape opens by default at 35% zoom. Once you set Inskcape to 100% zoom, you might not even see the page border on the screen. Although I certainly understand not wanting it there. I usually don't use the page border until I''m finished with the image. Then I often use Resize to Content, to fit the page border perfectly the same size as the image.

I'm a big fat dork! I knew when I hit post something was going to miraculously hit me. I'm coming from a long history of Paint workarounds, so the idea of having to resize the canvas is foreign (and glorious) to me. Thanks for your help! I didn't know about being able to hide the border. I'll keep that in mind. Thanks again!