Select objects

To organize and lay out your artwork, you use tools for selecting, positioning, and stacking objects precisely. You can measure and align objects; group objects so that they are treated as a single unit; and selectively isolate, lock, or hide objects.

Options for selecting objects

Before you can modify an object, you must distinguish it from the objects around it. You do that by selecting the object. Once you’ve selected an object, or a part of an object, you can edit it.

Illustrator provides the following selection methods and tools:

Lets you quickly and precisely select individual or multiple objects. You can select a single object (even if it’s in a group), all objects within a layer, and entire groups.

  Lets you select objects and groups by clicking or dragging over them. You can also select groups within groups and objects within groups.

Lets you select an object within a group, a single group within multiple groups, or a set of groups within the artwork. Each additional click adds all objects from the next group in the hierarchy.

Lets you bring objects and text in perspective, switch active planes, move objects in perspective, and move objects in perpendicular direction.

Lets you select objects, anchor points, or path segments by dragging around all or part of the object.

Lets you select objects of the same color, stroke weight, stroke color, opacity, or blending mode by clicking the object.

Lets you select faces (areas enclosed by paths) and edges (portions of paths between intersections) of Live Paint groups.

(located in the Select menu) Let you quickly select or deselect all objects, and select objects based on their position relative to other objects. You can select all objects of a specific type or that share specific attributes, and save or load selections. You can also select all objects in the active artboard.

Specify selection preferences

Selecting paths and points in complex images can be challenging. Using the Selection and Anchor Display preferences, you can specify the tolerance for pixel selection and choose other options that can make selection easier for a particular document.

Isolate artwork for editing

When isolation mode is active, the isolated object appears in full color, while the rest of the artwork appears grayed out. The isolated object’s name and location (sometimes referred to as bread crumbs) appears in the isolation mode border, and the Layers panel displays only the artwork in the isolated sublayer or group. When you exit isolation mode, the other layers and groups reappear in the Layers panel.

You can view isolated objects in outline mode or preview mode.

See the video Use isolation mode to isolate artwork for editing.

Isolate a path, object, or group

Isolate a path inside a group

Isolate a layer or sublayer

Exit isolation mode

Select behind objects

Select the next object in the stacking order

You can select an object above or below a selected object in the stacking order. These commands do not work when in isolation mode.

Select objects using the Layers panel

Select an object with the Selection, Lasso, or Magic Wand tool

Select objects with the Selection tool

Select objects with the Lasso tool

Select objects with the Magic Wand tool

Use the Magic Wand tool to select all objects in a document with the same or similar fill attributes (such as color and pattern).

You can customize the Magic Wand tool to select objects based on stroke weight, stroke color, opacity, or blending mode. You can also change the tolerances used by the Magic Wand tool to identify similar objects.

Select objects based on fill color with the Magic Wand tool

Customize the Magic Wand tool

Select filled objects

Select groups and objects in a group

Once objects are grouped, selecting any part of the group with the Selection tool or the Lasso tool selects the entire group. If you are unsure whether an object is a part of a group, select it with the Selection tool.

The  Direct Selection tool and Lasso tool let you select a single path or object that is part of one group or several groups. If you have groups of objects within other groups, you can select the next group in the grouping hierarchy by using the Group Selection tool. Each successive click adds another subset of grouped objects to the selection.

Select one or more groups with the Selection tool

Select objects and groups within groups with the Selection tool

Select a single object within a group

Select objects and groups with the Group Selection tool

Select objects completely inside the marquee

With the default marquee selection behavior, any object that is even partially inside the marquee gets selected. With the enclosed mode, you can select only those objects that are completely inside the marquee. To switch to the enclosed mode, just press E once as you drag the marquee. The E key acts as a toggle button and not as a modifier which means that you don’t need to keep pressing E while dragging the marquee. If you are already in enclosed mode and press E again, you switch back to the default selection behavior.

The enclosed mode works only with the normal Selection and Group Selection tools. With the Selection tool, when objects are grouped, the group is treated as an individual entity. On the other hand, with the Group Selection tool, objects are treated as individual entities even if they are part of a group.

To use the enclosed mode, do the following:

Select faces and edges in a Live Paint group

You select faces and edges of a Live Paint tool using the Live Paint Selection tool. If you want to select the entire Live Paint group, simply click it with the Selection tool.

Live Paint Selection tool options

You access the Live Paint selection tool options by double-clicking the tool in the tool panel.

Selects the faces (the area within edges) of Live Paint groups.

Selects the edges of Live Paint groups.

Sets the color for the highlight. You can choose a color from the menu or click the paint swatch to specify a custom color.

Specifies how thick to make the selection highlight.

Select objects by characteristic

You can select objects based on various groupings, including by formatting attribute, by layer, or by kind, such as brush strokes or clipping masks.

Select Same by text characteristics

You can now change the properties of all selected text boxes of a document at a time. You can select the text of multiple text objects based on the text characteristics like font size, text fill color, font style, font, and so on. 

Watch this 15-seconds video to learn how to change the font color of a text at multiple locations in a document at one go. 

To select all text objects with the same attribute, select a text, click Select > Same, and then choose an attribute from the list: 

• Font Family
• Font Family & Style
• Font Family, Style & Size
• Font Size
• Text Fill Color
• Text Stroke Color
• Test Fill & Stroke Color

All the text boxes with similar attributes are selected. You can now change the font, size, and so on, from the Properties > Character panel. The changes are reflected in all the selected text boxes. 

You can create keyboard shortcuts or create actions for each of the Select > Same text tasks based on each attribute. 

Repeat or invert a selection

• To repeat the last selection command used, choose Select > Reselect.

• To select all deselected objects, and deselect all selected objects, choose Select > Inverse.

Save a selection

With Save Selection, you can select multiple objects and save the selection for later use. You can then use this saved selection to move the objects together or change their appearance just like you'll do with a group object. However, unlike grouping, Save Selection selects the objects without bringing them all to the same layer.

To save a selection, do the following:

Once you save a selection, its name will appear in the Select menu and the Save Selection   menu in the Layers panel. When you select its name in either of these locations, the saved selection will appear on the canvas.

Update a saved selection

You can add or remove objects from your saved selection:

Rename or delete a saved selection

More like this

• Editing paths
• Specify anchor point size preferences
• Group or ungroup objects
  
• Live Paint groups

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