Changing Marquee Selection Modes

The information in this article applies to:

QUESTION

When I drag a marquee around a group of objects, it selects everything the marquee intersects. How can I change it so that it only selects objects inside of the marquee?

ANSWER

Groups of objects can be selected by holding down the Shift key when the Select Objects tool is active and then dragging a marquee around the objects to be selected.

You can specify whether objects must be totally contained by the marquee, intersected by the marquee, or an object’s center point must be contained in the marquee by accessing the Preferences dialog.

To change the Marquee Selection mode

1. Select Edit> Preferences  if you're on a Windows PC or Chief Architect> Preferences  if you're on a Mac.
   
   
   
2. Select the Edit panel and under the Marquee Selection section, move the radio button to the appropriate setting that you would like to use.
   
   
   
   
   • Choose Select Intersected Objects to select any objects whose bounding boxes are intersected by or located within the marquee.
     
     
   • Choose Select Contained Objects to select only objects located entirely within the marquee. This option provides the best results in most situations.
     
     
   • Choose Select Objects by Center to select only objects whose center points are located within the marquee.
     
     

     To make marquee selection easier, you can turn off the display of objects you do not want to include in your selection. Please refer to the Related Articles section to learn more.
     

For more information on selecting a group of objects, please see the "Group Selecting Objects" resource in the Related Articles section below.