Selecting objects.

To work with an object you must select it. Selected objects are surrounded by a dashed line.

When you select an object, it also shows handles. Handle is a small control you can drag to modify some properties of an object. Handles vary with the type of object and the tool selected on the toolbar. Here you can see how an ellipse looks with various tools: Select, Line, Arc.

To select an object, click it. If the Select, Rotate or Insert Vertex tool is on, you can also use Select Box for selecting. Click your mouse beyond all the objects you want to select, and while holding the mouse button, drag across the objects. All objects touched by the resulting dashed-line box will be selected.

To select all objects on the page, choose Select All from the Edit menu. To cancel the selection, click away from the selected objects.

Ctrl+A

Cmd+A

Multiple objects can also be selected by clicking them one at a time when holding down the Shift key. To cancel selection of an object when several are selected, hold down the Shift key and click the object (this applies for Select Box as well).

There are two types of selected objects: the object you selected first displays green handles (primary object), all the rest have blue handles. Some operations use the difference between primary objects and other objects. There like Align Figures, Distribute Figures, Make Same and some other use the primary object as the pattern for the others. Others, like Information, Hyperlink, Edit Text work with the primary object only, and ignore the rest.

You can assign primary selection to an object by simply clicking it with the mouse.

In most case, the Select tool is used for selecting objectsá. To choose, click its button on the on the toolbar (Ctrl+1).

Selecting objects within a group.á

You can select objects within a group like you select other objects.

Unlike common objects, objects selected within a group display gray handles. This indicates that objects that form a group are protected against some operations, such as moving and rotating, though you can change their line color and thickness, fill color, add text, etc.
To select an object within a group, select the group first, and then click the object you want. If the group includes other groups, you may have to click more then once until you select the object you want.

Selecting objects in the order they were created.

Another option for selecting is to use the Tab key. Each time you hit Tab, you activate objects in the order in which they were created or dropped on page, starting from the currently selected object. The program will adjust the document page each time you press Tab, so that the selected object results in the centre of the screen. If no object is selected, hitting Tab will affect the first object you've drawn or dropped on the page.

Holding down the Shift key when hitting Tab reverses the selection order.