Selecting objects

To select a single object, click on any visible part of the object.

Change object selection

Once an object is selected, you can use the following keys to change the selection:

End selects the back object.
Home selects the front object.
"Tab" selects the next object towards the back.
"Shift + Tab" selects the next object towards the front.

Front and back objects are described in "Object Handling

Marquee Selection

To select multiple objects, press and hold down the mouse button. Dragging the mouse draws a selection rectangle, by default all objects wholly within the selection rectangle are selected.
If you have an object in the way which is preventing you from drawing a rectangle because you end up moving the object, hold down "Shift" while dragging out the selection rectangle.

By default, dragging a selection rectangle selects only those objects which are completely inside the rectangle. This behavior can be changed so it's compatible with the way selection works in other applications, whereby the objects touching the rectangle outline also become selected. Hold down "Ctrl" while dragging to include those objects touching the selection rectangle in the selection.

The "Utilities > General tab" dialog (General Tab) enables you to change the default setting for marquee selection. So you can choose to have objects touching the selection rectangle selected, without having to hold down "Ctrl" during the drag. In this case, holding "Ctrl" down while dragging selects only the objects wholly inside the rectangle.

Extend Selection

To select additional objects:

"Shift + click" on them.
Or "Shift + drag" the mouse pointer. This draws a selection rectangle and adds objects within the rectangle to the selection.

Select under

Hold down "Alt" to select objects hidden by other objects. By "Alt + clicking" you can step through several overlapping objects.

Select inside

You can select an object that's inside a group or other container object by holding down "Ctrl" while you click on it. This is called selecting inside. The object you click on will always become selected, even if it's deep down inside several levels of nested groups. When you have such deep nesting of groups, sometimes you may want to select one of the nested groups (a group inside another group). If you hold down the "Alt" and "Ctrl" keys while you click you can do this easily. The first such click will select the top level group (just as an unmodified click does). Click again and the next group down in the hierarchy will be selected instead. Continue clicking to 'drill down' into the group structure until the group you want becomes selected.

Note that some operations are not permitted with select inside. For example, you are not permitted to delete the end object of a blend (because the blend would then be meaningless).
Marquee selection does not work for select inside, because "Ctrl" is used to toggle the two marquee selection modes.

Scribble Selection

In the Selector Tool, drag with "Alt" held down and instead of dragging a box, a freehand line is draw. Every object that is touched by the line becomes selected. Hence you can drag the mouse around the page, touching all the objects that you want to select. This also works in conjunction "Shift" for extend selection and "Ctrl" for select inside.

Moving objects selected under or inside

If you need to move a selected object that's either under others or inside a group, then just dragging doesn't work as it will select and drag a different object. To overcome this hold "Ctrl + Alt" and start dragging. This will always drag the existing selected object. You can let go of the keys once you've started dragging. Or you can use the arrow keys on the keyboard to nudge the object.

Selecting and layers

You cannot select objects in locked or invisible layers. See "Page & Layer Gallery " for more details on layers.

Selecting Photos and SmartShapes

When you select a photo or SmartShape with the Selector Tool, you'll see Smartphoto handles. This allows direct editing of the photo or SmartShape without having to first switch into the The Photo Tool or Quickshape Tool.

Selecting all objects

To select all objects:

Choose "Edit" > "Select all",
Or press "Ctrl + A".

Deselecting an object

To deselect all objects:

Click anywhere on an unused part of the document,
Or choose "Edit" > "Clear selection",
Or press "Esc".

To deselect one object from several:

"Shift + click" on the object. This deselects that object. Other objects remain selected.

Selecting with Soft Groups

When you click on an object which is a member of a soft group, all members of the soft group become selected. This is one of the main purposes of Soft Groups – to keep closely related objects together even when they are on different layers. If you want to select just one member of a Soft Group, use Ctrl to select inside, as described above. See the "Soft Group" section in "Object Handling" for more information.