I've torn the forum apart hoping I could figure this out on my own, but I totally haven't. Woe.

I've got the following image:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33004925/LOGO-duo%20color.svg

I'm trying to "punch out" the spaces inside the letters to make them transparent. If you look you'll see it's not text, and never was; I was actually tracing a bitmap image of an old logo I did not have in vector art format. The four "spaces" (closed paths) are all the same, as far as I can tell. Mind you, I've switched the "fill rule" back and forth so many times at this point I have no idea what's up. So I figured, do the trace, combine, voila! Well, not so much with the voila. Three of the "spaces" are combined properly every time, the "space" inbetween the K and the B is just not. Ever. No matter what I do. I can't give a complete list of what I've tried as I've been banging on this problem for two hours and messed around with just about everything. I even re-drew the object, throwing the original version away, thinking some setting I could not find was wonky. But, no, like a bad penny that "space" (object) does not want to combine. Or, it does combine, it just doesn't punch out like the other three spaces do. I'm totally flummoxed. Oh, note that when I combine, I put the large "kbs" outline on top, so that the fill for the letters works properly after the combination. That part works great, except for the one object that isn't playing along.

I'm not an inkscape guru by any means, and I suspect this is a simple problem with a simple solution. I hope, anyway. Advice/ideas desperately needed!

I'm not sure what you mean by punch out.
If you want a version "with holes" then I uploaded one.

over B & S glyphs you got 3 paths (navy blue stroke + white fill with medium opacity)
I think your problem is because betwen K & B you got 2 paths stacked : both with navy blue stroke and white fill but one fill has its opacity to 0 (=fully transparent)

How I proceeded :

I ungroup the whole drawing (shift ctrl g)
I clicked the glyphs and ungroup them again.
Now when I hover kbs it it says it's a path with 31 nodes.

I deleted one of the path between K & B
(
Before moving please note the location of the shape ;
I suggest you change the fill opacity of the shape that was under right now.
It'll be easier to select it later.
)

I repeat the following operation for every hole
I select (=click) kbs + 1 hole (shift + click) then I use difference (ctrl + -)

And voilà

v1nce wrote:I'm not sure what you mean by punch out.
If you want a version "with holes" then I uploaded one

Yes, "holes" and "punch outs" are the same thing. Thank you for this corrected file! However what I'd really like to know is how you accomplished it; did you use "combine"? What steps did you take? I literally spent hours trying to get that one "hole" between the K and B to combine without luck, and I would like to know for the future what I was doing wrong. I'd really appreciate it if you could explain how you made it work. Thanks again!

Oh hey you must have edited your post? So disregard my last reply! *sheepish grin* Thank you SO MUCH for the explainations. I have an old copy of the file I'll practice those steps on. You have been a great help, I really appreciate it!