Selecting artwork

Before you can change anything you have to say what to change. This page is about choosing artwork: the quick clicks with the selection tools, and the whole Select menu that picks objects by what they are made of, steps through the stack, and stores a selection to bring back later. In the shortcuts below, ⌘ is Ctrl on Windows and Linux, ⌥ is Alt and ⇧ is Shift.

Clicking and marqueeing

The Selection tool (V) is where most selecting starts. Click an object to select it; hold ⇧ and click another to add it, or click a selected one to drop it. Drag across empty canvas to pull a marquee, and everything it touches is selected. The Direct Selection tool (A) reaches inside instead: it picks individual anchor points and path segments rather than whole objects, and the Group Selection tool steps into a group one level at a time. These tools are covered on the Tools and Paths pages; the rest of this page is the Select menu, which does the picking that clicking cannot.

All, none and inverse

Command	Shortcut	What it selects
Select › All	`⌘A`	Every unlocked object in the document.
All on Active Board	`⌥⌘A`	Only the artwork on the board you are working on — the fast way to grab one page of a multi-board file.
Deselect	`⇧⌘A`	Nothing; clears the current selection.
Inverse		Swaps the selection for everything that was not selected.
Reselect	`⌘6`	Brings back the selection you had just before you cleared it.

Stepping through the stack

When objects overlap, Select › Next Object Above (⌥⌘]) and Next Object Below (⌥⌘[) move the selection up or down through the pile at the same spot, one object at a time. It is the reliable way to reach a shape buried under others without dragging the ones on top out of the way.

Select Same: picking by what things share

Select one object, then Select › Same gathers every other object in the document that matches it on one trait. Use it to recolour every shape of one fill in a single sweep, or to grab all the thin strokes at once.

Appearance: The whole look — the same stack of fills, strokes and effects.
Fill & Stroke: The same fill and the same stroke together.
Fill Color / Stroke Color: The same fill colour, or the same stroke colour.
Stroke Weight: The same stroke width.
Opacity: The same opacity.
Blending Mode: The same blend mode.
Shape: The same kind of object — all the ellipses, say, or all the type.

Saving a selection

A fiddly selection is worth keeping. Select › Save Selection… stores the current set under a name; it then appears under Select › Saved Selections, and choosing it there selects exactly those objects again, however you have clicked around since. Edit Selection… renames or removes the ones you have saved. Saved selections travel inside the .cut document, so they are still there the next time you open the file.