I am trying to take a design I made and trim the outside edge into a perfect circle. To do this I created a circle the exact size I wanted the image to be. I then made a square slightly larger than the circle. I then cut the circle out of the inside of the square. I then place the square with the circular hole over the design and centered it. You will see in the images that there is a overlap that is fairly even around the edge of the design I want clipped. I then copied and pasted the square IN PLACE so that you can see how the edge of the design looks after I clip it. I made sure the squares were above the design in the Layers screen. I then chose one part (color) of the design and a square, clicked on Path>Difference. See images below...

I am using Windows 10 (with 2 monitors) with Inkscape V1.3 (Not newly installed) (I believe I used the .msi to install). All files were created with Inkscape. The design I created are 3 separate paths (different colors). The square with the circle in the middle I tried clipping as an object as well as a path. Both had the same results. 

Before I tried to trim the design.

Before and After images

Why is this not clipping a perfect circle? This issue happened for all three parts (colors) of the design. I did each part separately. I have been using Inkscape for many many years and have never seen this happen.

Would appreciate any help.

Thanks

Instead of a circle, I'd try using a 16 point polygon converted to path with smooth nodes.

(Circles converted to Bezier paths are not true arcs.)

Thanks for the suggestion. I tried it but it too left gaps. It actually left multiple gaps (instead of one at each end) but smaller. 

This example was done with 64 points. 16 points left bigger gaps. So this makes think that the more points I use the smaller the gaps.

I guess I am confused on why when I create a perfect circle/ellipse, and it appears to be a perfect circle, when I clip the other item it does not clip accurately on the edge as it should? It does clip much of the object on the edge but then parts are noticeably not. I have not seen this before. I guess the same applies to your suggestion. 

When the clip is applied, the circle is converted to Bezier curves, which as we know are not true arcs.

Here's a 128 point polygon converted to path with symmetric nodes. It looks pretty good in front of a circle.

(right click the thumbnail to save and open in Inkscape.)