AutoCAD 2007 and higher versions

Hello Dailyautocad readers,

One of the features that will improve your productivity in AutoCAD is using editing functions more efficiently. In near future, we are planning to write more about editing commands and achieving them under AutoCAD lessons title. However, before learning editing commands in detail, it is more important to learn how to efficiently select the entities over which editing will be made. My 18 year experience in AutoCAD, says that first step of using editing commands efficiently is good knowledge of selecting entities.

In this article, I will explain the method of “making selections after entering any modifying command”. Me and our other authors will write more about other selection methods, advanced settings and tips related to them.

As soon as you enter any of editing commands, “Select objects:” message will appear in the command line. After this point, you start creating a selection set. Now, let’s examine how to create a selection set in detail.

Making selection one by one:

Fig. 1 Making selection one by one.

Command: _MOVE
Select objects:

You can select entities one by one by the small rectangle cursor by your mouse. This small rectangle is called PICKBOX. Any entity you click on by using this pickbox is selected and a preview of selection appears. Thus, entities that you select are marked point by point and as you make selection, number of entities you have selected so far is written in the command line.

Select objects: 1 found, 2 total

Until you press ENTER, you continue creating a selection set. Now, let me mention the options you have while selecting these entities.

Selecting by window:

Fig. 2 Selecting by window.

If you click on an empty spot with your pickbox and drag your mouse to left or right, you will see that a rectangular window appears on the screen. If you click on upper left and form a selection window by moving your mouse to right and make the selection this way, then AutoCAD selects that entities which are completely inside the selection window (Fig. 2). Due to the fact that, only 30 dimension is completely inside our selection set in this example, only that entity will be selected. An alternative to this is polygon window (WP). If you enter wp and create a polygon, only entities that are completely inside that polygon will be selected.

Selecting by crossing window:

Fig. 3 Selecting by crossing window.

In the previous example, if we have clicked on the lower right side and dragged mouse to left, not from left to right; then only entities which are completely inside the window and the entities that the crossing window touches will be selected. In this example, all of the dimensions that touch the crossing window and G axis are selected, but G inside the bubble at the end of axis is not selected. Similar to window, as we enter CP option, we can create a polygonal crossing window and select all entities that are inside or touched this polygon.

Selecting with fence line:

Select objects: f

Fig. 4 Selecting with fence line.

If you enter f during entity selection, then a line group is created and any entity that touches this line is selected.

Previous selection set:

In addition to these six number of fundamental selection methods, you can also use p (previous) option. When you use P, then you add the entities that are inside the previous selection set, if there is one.

Remove:

Up to now, you always used adding mode for you selection sets. However, you can remove the entities that are added to your selection set by mistake by using r (remove) option. When you use this option, “Remove objects” message appears in you command line and you can remove entities from your selection set by using similar to the methods that you use for adding entities. To enter back to adding mode, you must simply enter a (add) option.

Note: Another removing method is to make selection by pressing SHIFT button. By this way, entities you touch by clicking on is once added and once removed (Of course, if you did not assign SHIFT button only to make adding).

Selecting entities that are close to each other or overlapping:

When you are making selection from entities that are very close to each other or overlapping, then if you make your selection by pressing SHIFT and SPACE buttons together (in earlier versions of AutoCAD CTRL button); AutoCAD enters a cycling mode and every time you click on, another entity is selected. After selecting the entity that you want to select, you can exit from the cycle by pressing ESC button.

Fundamentals of making selection are explained in this article, and I will prepare another article for the advanced techniques.

Have ease everyone.

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