but the verbiage on the one that seemed to fit my issue best took a bit of a left turn out of my field of familiarity.

I used the SEARCH box to try & find other posts about this, and think I found one or two. but what I don't know, is how to make them match.

I've got a 'process' that has been working (go to the width box, enter the width listed in Inkscape, then tab to the X & Y boxes and enter 0.5 in both of them, so my image comes up to the top left corner), but when I have a pretty detailed image, WHOA NELLY, it takes a long time to load!!! I understand that there's a difference with the way each software 'defines an inch' and how many pixels should be counted within an inch - or something.

But the BIG issue is, when importing my images into Design Space, the image ends up being something ridiculous like 450 in x 512 in, and is placed somewhere around Timbuktu on the canvas. Now, my Documents Properties box pops up waaaaay off to the right side of the screen, and I can usually barely click on it to drag it into view. I attempted to follow a couple different YouTube videos for changing the main template in Inkscape to fix the image scaling issue between Inkscape & the Cricut Design Space software. 75% of the time, it usually ends up working out in my favor. Where I get myself into the biggest messes is, attempting to follow instructions from someone who is intending them for someone with a bit more experience than I have. I consider myself fairly geeky & would say I'm pretty tech-savvy. That said, I feel pretty confident about where I am (for now, anyway) with regards to what I really use it for. 15% via YouTube videos, 85% accidental find during trial & error button pushing. Super brief intro about me - I am 100% self-taught on Inkscape.

Inkscape cricut expression