Working with Groups

Working with Groups

In order to protect the shape of an object, or to make it easier to select objects, you can group the points on the path or the multiple objects.

To group paths:

Select the path or objects you want to group

Figure 12. The anchor points of the selected objects ar 151e424b e visible before the objects are grouped.

Choose Modify > Group. Instead of individual points, four group anchor points designate the corners of the path or paths

Figure 13. After the objects are grouped, the group displays four anchor points when selected.

To work with grouped objects:

To select a grouped object, click the Pointer tool on the object.

To resize a grouped object, drag on one of the four group anchor points that surround the object

Figure 14. Drag one of the group anchor points to resize a grouped object.

To resize the object without distorting its shape, hold the Shift key as you drag one of the group anchor points.

Once you group objects, they are displayed in the Object inspector as a group. This allows you to make changes to the group as a whole.

To modify a group in the Object inspector:

Select the group.

Set the attributes in the Object inspector as follows

Figure 15. When a group is selected, the Object inspector shows the coordinates and dimensions of the group.

o        Use the x field to change the horizontal position of the upper-left corner.

o        Use the y field to change the vertical position of the upper-left corner.

o        Use the w field to change the width of the group.

o        Use the h field to change the height of the group.

Press Enter/Return to apply the changes to the group.

To select individual points in a group:

Choose the Subselect tool in the Tools panel

Figure 16. The Subselect tool in the Tools panel.

TIP

Instead of the Subselect tool, you can use the Pointer tool while holding the Opt/ Alt key.

Click one of the objects in the group. The individual points of the object appear.

Click the point you want to select. The point is displayed as a hollow dot

Figure 17. Use the Subselect tool to select individual points of a grouped object.

To select additional points, hold the Shift key and click those points.

You can create levels of groups to make it easier to select objects. This is called nesting.

To nest grouped objects:

Select and group the first object.

After the object is grouped, deselect it.

Group any additional objects

Figure 18. The four anchor points around each of the knives indicate that each one has been grouped.

Select all the individual groups and group them together as a single unit

Figure 19. The four anchor points around all the knives indicate that they are all part of one group.

Once you have taken the time to nest groups, you can easily select the individual groups within the nested group.

To work with nested groups:

Use the Subselect tool to select an object or point in a nested group.

Press the tilde (~) key. This selects up to the next level of the nest.

Continue to press the tilde key until you have selected all the levels you want.

To ungroup an object:

Select the grouped object.

Choose Modify > Ungroup. This ungroups the object.

If the object was part of a nested group, choose the Ungroup command again until you have completely ungrouped all the objects.