Creating a rectangular marquee to select objects

I am trying to use the selection tool or the direct selection tool to create a rectangular marquee somewhere within the boundaries of an illustration.
I want to select only those objects that are fully or partially within that marquee.
I can use the lasso to select objects in this way.
But if I try to use the selection or direct selection tool, it selects and moves the first object I touch.
I can use the selection tools and begin from outside the image area and create a rectangular marquee of selected objects.
But I can't do this if I begin within the image.

Illustrator is mostly alone in its selection options. Some other vector drawing applications have an option as to the marquee selection behavior.
I wouldn't hold your breath for a change.
Mike

Similar Messages

Photoshop Elements 11 - Rectangular Marquee functionality gone

I "upgraded" from Photoshop Elements 8 (PE8) to Photoshop Elements 11 (PE11), and have regretted it every day. I use the Macintosh version and have used PE for many years. A refund is in my immediate future.
One bit of functionality in PE8 THAT IS NOT in PE11 is the "Rectangular Marguee" options. In PE8, selecting "Rectangular Marquee" showed three options: "Normal" "Fixed Size" "Fixed Ratio". "Normal" allowed freeform selection of areas of the photo. "Fixed Size" created a Marquee that matched the dimensions you provide (such as selecting a 3" x "5" set portion of a photo) "Fixed Ratio" allowed a size ratio of the marquee. Here is an example of what I did with the "Fixed Size": My wife is a teacher and takes many pics of her kids for a variety of reasons. I can set a "Fixed Size" Rectangular Marquee to select a portion of a picture to segregate just the child's face that I copy/paste into MSWord to print the equivalent of a sheet of school pictures to allow the kids to learn each other's names.
Note also that, simlar to another bug I reported that is easily reproduced by Adobe Tech Support, If I select a portion of a photo (1 1/2"w x 2"h for example as in the school pictures above) copy/paste into other software (MS Word in my case) results in a pasted image of about 5"w.
Many new features in PE11, many old features of PE8 GONE.
Don't get me started with Adobe discarding the option of opening photos in PE11 utilizing their "Adobe Bridge" program like they allowed in PE8.
HELP, Adobe! Please fix these bugs!

I think you are maybe just not looking in the right place. For instance, the tool options are now down at the bottom of your screen rather than in the options bar at the top. If you don't see them, click the Tool Options button. Then for the Rectangular Marquee you should see:
There's actually more functionality now with the new refine edge tool, not less.

Create a new object that surrounds the selected objects

Is there anyway in illustrator to create a new vector object from selected objects?
IE if i have three rectangles selected, can I make a new vector path that surrounds them all.
I dont mean welding a group of vectors together or offsetting a path...which isnt exactly what i need.
What Im needing to do is create cut lines around complex vector art quickly.
Thanks in advance.

Mike i need to make an outline around a logo but if the logo has many elements that make up the edge of the logo does that method work?
As the cut line needs to be a closed path
Ideally i want to avoid tracing around the logo with the pen tool or add to shape area in pathfinder tab.
I sure theres a really easy way to do this.
Kurt its an interesting discussion however in need a closed path to surrond artwork and live paint does just the opposite :)

Does Illustrator have an equivalent to Photoshop's rectangular marquee selection tool?

I am trying to select just a piece of an image in an Illustrator file to copy and re-scale, but I can't find the equivalent to Photoshop's rectangular marquee selection tool. Is there such a tool? Otherwise, I guess I can make the edits in photoshop and place in illustrator. Thanks!

Vector programmes ≇ Raster programmes
There are workarounds, but if you want to do yourself a favour, just do it in Photoshop or another Raster application.

Deselecting Rectangular Marquee Selection in CS5

When using the Rectangular Marquee Tool, why can I no longer deselect my selection by simply clicking outside the selection? I've been doing it this way since Photoshop 1.0, but now it seems that I have to either use the Deselect command or switch to the Lasso in order to accomplish this extremely simple task. For me personally, this is a real pain in the you-know-what. Is there a way to change this behavior?

It turns out that when you select the rectangular marquee tool, several tiny icons appear in the left corner of the Toolbar. The first one is for "new selection", which causes the selection rectangle to behave normally. The next icon ("add to selection") causes the behavior I complained about. I must have unintentionally selected this option. Problem solved. Thanks!

Rectangular Marquee with fixed ratio

Hello.
I'am trying to make selection transform similar to "Rectangular Marquee Tool" with fixed ratio. I've got ratio changed while pulling a side.
Its OK with "Shift" button pressed before pull occured. I'am looking for solution that alows me to transform selection without "Shift" pressed.
Any solutions?

digcode wrote:
Hello.
I'am trying to make selection transform similar to "Rectangular Marquee Tool" with fixed ratio. I've got ratio changed while pulling a side.
Its OK with "Shift" button pressed before pull occured. I'am looking for solution that alows me to transform selection without "Shift" pressed.
Any solutions?
Shift for the transform tool like transform selection constrains the selection to the current aspect ratio. Shift for the marquee tool constrains the selection to square. In any case shift has nothing to do with script code unless the code is executing an interactive Action or performing and interactive step like a scriptlisener step.
Just do the math. You know the AR and you can retrieve the documents width and height. You may also want to rotate the AR or image so the images orientation works better with the AR you wanting to select.
My crafting actions package contains 12 scripts I created for use within Actions two are Plug-ins based on Adobe's FitImage Plug-in script. One is named AspectRatioSelection. You may want to look at it. It uses a function I created from scriptlistner code that can make selection or paths that are rectangle or oval in shape the size of the document or with a 25% border centered or from the top right of a document. The Script rotate the AR to match the document orientation. I did make one the made that rotation an option but never made that version public. It very easy to add that option if you need to.
Interavtive scripts are not that common and when come down to it there is not a DOM object for Transform. In my Photo Collage Toolkit package in its Interactive Populate Collage script after the script places in an image, it re-size and positions the image then the script put the user into and interactive transform using scriptlistener code. The modifier keys will work the way Adobe programmed the feature to work.
//==================== Interactive Transform ==============
function InteractiveTransform() {
// Menu Edit>Free transform
    var desc1 = new ActionDescriptor();
    var ref1 = new ActionReference();
    ref1.putEnumerated(cTID('Mn '), cTID('MnIt'), cTID('FrTr'));
    desc1.putReference(cTID('null'), ref1);
    executeAction(cTID('slct'), desc1, DialogModes.NO);
The only way I can think it may be able to be done the way you want it to would be for you to code some interactive dialog window. Where you put up a dialog box over the selection and resize it when the user uses their mouse to drag a side or corner. I have never code a interactive dialog GUI and therefore don't know if that would even be possible. I have come across some dynamic dialogs but never one positioned to a selection. You could put out a dialog or prompt to information as to how to resize the selection or accept the current then resize the selection and refresh the display and loop till the selection is accepted or canceled in this dialog. Perhaps using arrow keys in the dialog where the script handles the resize stepping a does it from the center to maintain position and only allow size changing without rotation.
Transform also allow rotation and distortion so be careful how you code it. Code in a cancel perhaps a reset also.
My free Photoshop Packages can be downloaded from this link http://www.mouseprints.net/Photoshop.html

Script to apply a random CMYK swatches from a group of swatches to selected objects.

I would like to write some scripts for randomising the allocation of swatches to adjacent object.
Example:
Imagine a map of Europe and all her nation states/territories. I have a User Defined Swatch Library. I can open the AI document it was made from as I understand from this thread that having the swatches as objects on the page makes them easier to be referenced in a script.
I want to iterate through the selected objects and randomly assign one of the colours in the swatch document as a fill to each object. It would be great if hidden swatches (they are all small rectangular 'colour chip' filled paths) on page were not included in the reference swatches randomly choosen from.
Iterating the selected objects I can do, but not sure what references I need to use to create an array of swatches to randomly choose from.
I see I can make an array of swatches using the general swatch group from Adobe's CreateSwatchGroup scripts:
JS
var docRef = app.documents.add(DocumentColorSpace.CMYK)
// Create a new SwatchGroup
var swatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups.add();
swatchGroup.name = "CreateSwatchGroup";
// Get list of swatches in general swatch group
var genSwatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups[0];
// Collect 5 random swatches from general swatch group and move to new group
var i = 0;
while (i < 5) {
          var swatches = genSwatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
          swatchCount = swatches.length;
          var swatchIndex = Math.round(Math.random() * (swatchCount - 1)); // 0-based index
          // New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
          if (swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "PatternColor" && swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "GradientColor") {
                    swatchGroup.addSwatch(swatches[swatchIndex]);
                    i++;
// Updates swatch list with swatches moved to new swatch group
swatches = swatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
// [… etc etc]
AS
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
activate
          set docRef to make new document with properties {color space:CMYK}
-- Create a new SwatchGroup
          set swatchGroupRef to make new swatchgroup in current document with properties {name:"CreateSwatchGroup"}
-- Get list of swatches in general swatch group
          set genSwatchGroup to swatchgroup 1 of docRef
-- Collect 5 random swatches from the general swatch group and move to new group
          set i to 0
          repeat until i is 5
                    set swatchesRef to get all swatches genSwatchGroup
                    set swatchCount to count every item in swatchesRef
                    set swatchIndex to random number from 1 to swatchCount
                    set currentSwatch to item swatchIndex of swatchesRef
-- New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
                    if class of color of currentSwatch is not pattern color info and class of color of currentSwatch is not gradient color info then
add swatch swatchGroupRef swatch currentSwatch
                              set i to i + 1
                    end if
          end repeat
-- [… etc etc]
If someone can help me to create the Swatch Array object of swatches loaded from a seperate document (or unique layer) then I think I can work my way to changing the fill on the existing paths (the nations in my map of Europe example).
Would be very cool if I could detect neighbooring paths (nieghbooring nations in my map of Europe example) make sure the colour being assigned is not within a certain hue/CMYK range of the random colour and if it is rechoose random colour. I have no idea how to perform the logic of determining neighbooring paths in an Illustartor script. Anybody?!
I'd prefer Applescript for sake of readiblity and also I'm learning AS ATM. Plus I'm using Script Debugger.app (which is excellent) to work with AS and I can't seem to run JSX scripts from within Extend Script Toolkit 2 (perhaps I need to make my scripts point to Illustrator?)
But Javascript is okay if someone has this covered already :-)

I would like to write some scripts for randomising the allocation of swatches to adjacent object.
Example:
Imagine a map of Europe and all her nation states/territories. I have a User Defined Swatch Library. I can open the AI document it was made from as I understand from this thread that having the swatches as objects on the page makes them easier to be referenced in a script.
I want to iterate through the selected objects and randomly assign one of the colours in the swatch document as a fill to each object. It would be great if hidden swatches (they are all small rectangular 'colour chip' filled paths) on page were not included in the reference swatches randomly choosen from.
Iterating the selected objects I can do, but not sure what references I need to use to create an array of swatches to randomly choose from.
I see I can make an array of swatches using the general swatch group from Adobe's CreateSwatchGroup scripts:
JS
var docRef = app.documents.add(DocumentColorSpace.CMYK)
// Create a new SwatchGroup
var swatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups.add();
swatchGroup.name = "CreateSwatchGroup";
// Get list of swatches in general swatch group
var genSwatchGroup = docRef.swatchGroups[0];
// Collect 5 random swatches from general swatch group and move to new group
var i = 0;
while (i < 5) {
          var swatches = genSwatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
          swatchCount = swatches.length;
          var swatchIndex = Math.round(Math.random() * (swatchCount - 1)); // 0-based index
          // New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
          if (swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "PatternColor" && swatches[swatchIndex].color.typename != "GradientColor") {
                    swatchGroup.addSwatch(swatches[swatchIndex]);
                    i++;
// Updates swatch list with swatches moved to new swatch group
swatches = swatchGroup.getAllSwatches();
// [… etc etc]
AS
tell application "Adobe Illustrator"
activate
          set docRef to make new document with properties {color space:CMYK}
-- Create a new SwatchGroup
          set swatchGroupRef to make new swatchgroup in current document with properties {name:"CreateSwatchGroup"}
-- Get list of swatches in general swatch group
          set genSwatchGroup to swatchgroup 1 of docRef
-- Collect 5 random swatches from the general swatch group and move to new group
          set i to 0
          repeat until i is 5
                    set swatchesRef to get all swatches genSwatchGroup
                    set swatchCount to count every item in swatchesRef
                    set swatchIndex to random number from 1 to swatchCount
                    set currentSwatch to item swatchIndex of swatchesRef
-- New swatch group does not allow patterns or gradients
                    if class of color of currentSwatch is not pattern color info and class of color of currentSwatch is not gradient color info then
add swatch swatchGroupRef swatch currentSwatch
                              set i to i + 1
                    end if
          end repeat
-- [… etc etc]
If someone can help me to create the Swatch Array object of swatches loaded from a seperate document (or unique layer) then I think I can work my way to changing the fill on the existing paths (the nations in my map of Europe example).
Would be very cool if I could detect neighbooring paths (nieghbooring nations in my map of Europe example) make sure the colour being assigned is not within a certain hue/CMYK range of the random colour and if it is rechoose random colour. I have no idea how to perform the logic of determining neighbooring paths in an Illustartor script. Anybody?!
I'd prefer Applescript for sake of readiblity and also I'm learning AS ATM. Plus I'm using Script Debugger.app (which is excellent) to work with AS and I can't seem to run JSX scripts from within Extend Script Toolkit 2 (perhaps I need to make my scripts point to Illustrator?)
But Javascript is okay if someone has this covered already :-)

How to print "selected objects" in InDesign CS4?

I have a large calendar in ID CS4. I want to print and view some of the text in its actual size. My printer can only print A4 documents. How can I print only selected texts and objects in its actual size in this application?
Although copying and pasting the text in another A4 sized document (IDCS4) would do it but there is no native support of "printing selection" but Microsoft's "Word' has!

I think the layer option is best.
Select what you want then open the layers panel and create a new layer. Select the objects you want to print, then in the layers panel you will see a small square to the right of the layer name. Alt Drag that to the new layer to copy the items, you can then turn off the visibility to the other layer and just print out the new layer.
Then switch the visibility of the layers around to view the original artwork.

Querying for a script insert multiple selected objects...

Is there a script or plugin which insert multiple selected objects in one new text frame with one click?
And is there a script or plugin which extract the content of anchored text frame out it's frame and replace it with it's frame. and extract selected text and insert it inside a new anchored text frame in it's place? (like convert text to table - convert table to text, but instead table we use text frame)

Hi,
Using OMB scripting to set attribute properties in a data mapping sort of defeats the purpose of utilizing a graphical user interface to define and set properties for a data mapping? Surely the GUI data mapping tool was created to get away from writing scripts and scripting would also require that you know the name of the data mapping, table operator and the set of attribute names for which you have to write one line of script to set each property value, i.e. 90 lines to set 90 attribute values.
Cheers,
Phil

Adobe Photoshop OpenGL Rectangular Marquee Bug

Per this thread on the Adobe support forums, there is currently a bug with the Rectangular Marquee tool in Photoshop CS4 and CS5. The "marching ants" selection outline is not positioned correctly, making it difficult to tell if you have selected the correct pixels. This is extremely annoying.
Turning off OpenGL Drawing in the Performance preferences fixes the problem, but also disables a number of useful features.
The problem has been isolated specifically to Macs with an ATI Radeon card. I have the problem on my Mac Mini with an ATI Radeon HD 6630M, but not on my Macbook Pro with an NVIDIA GeForce 9400M.
Chris Cox, and Adobe employee, said:
Again, this is a bug in Apple's video card drivers.
Adobe can't really fix it (we tried, but all we can do is work around it, and then the behavior changes every time Apple tries to fix the core bug).
If you'd like to see it fixed, please let Apple know that this is important to you, so they'll put more priority on fixing their video card drivers.
So, Apple, this is important to me.
If you are also having this problem, please gang on.

Kurt Lang wrote:
…I haven't installed PS 6 under Snow Leopard, so don't know how the marquee will behave there, either.
FWIW, the Ps Marquee bug is not there in the Photoshop 13.x beta running under Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on a 2007 MacBook which my wife had discarded and I rescued from the trash (its only problem had been a bulging battery chopking the trackpad).
This may well be totally irrelevant, however, as Open GL is not available on the MacBook due to its integrated Intel GMA 950 graphics.

Script to align selected objects to artboard

Hello, I was wondering if anyone had a simple solution to aligning selected items to the artboard. I was going to create an action but then realized it would be more convenient for me to include it in my script file....I have a script to align objects with each other but they dont align to the artboard. Any suggestions?

Hello volocitygraphics,
here is a quick&dirty solution.
Note that the result may be different, if clipping masks are exists in the document.
Please test it at first on copies of your documents. Use it on your own risk.
// ArtboardCenterAroundSelectedPaths.jsx
// works with CS5
// http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1336506?tstart=0
// (title: script to align selected objects to artboard)
// quick & dirty, all selected items will be centered at the active artboard
// (include clipping paths !visible result can be different)
// regards pixxxelschubser 19.Nov. 2013
var aDoc = app.activeDocument;
var Sel = aDoc.selection;
if (Sel.length >0 ) {
    var abIdx = aDoc.artboards.getActiveArtboardIndex();
    var actAbBds = aDoc.artboards[abIdx].artboardRect;
    var vBounds = Sel[0].visibleBounds;
    vBounds_Li = vBounds[0];
    vBounds_Ob = vBounds[1];
    vBounds_Re = vBounds[2];
    vBounds_Un = vBounds[3];
if (Sel.length >1 ) {
    for (i=1; i<Sel.length ; i++) {
        vBdsI = Sel[i].visibleBounds;
        if( vBounds_Li > vBdsI[0] ) {vBounds_Li = vBdsI[0]};
        if( vBounds_Ob < vBdsI[1] ) {vBounds_Ob = vBdsI[1]};
        if( vBounds_Re < vBdsI[2] ) {vBounds_Re = vBdsI[2]};
        if( vBounds_Un > vBdsI[3] ) {vBounds_Un = vBdsI[3]};
    aDoc.artboards[abIdx].artboardRect = [vBounds_Li +((vBounds_Re - vBounds_Li)/2-(actAbBds[2]-actAbBds[0])/2), vBounds_Ob -((vBounds_Ob - vBounds_Un)/2+(actAbBds[3]-actAbBds[1])/2), vBounds_Li +((vBounds_Re - vBounds_Li)/2-(actAbBds[2]-actAbBds[0])/2)+(actAbBds[2]-actAbBds[0]), vBounds_Ob -((vBounds_Ob - vBounds_Un)/2+(actAbBds[3]-actAbBds[1])/2)+(actAbBds[3]-actAbBds[1])];
    } else {
        alert ("No selection");
I hope so, the document coordinatesystem is the same as in CS6+
Have fun

Rectangular Marquee Tool screen artifacts

Hi - I have a problem with Photoshop CS3 (version 10.0) on a Windows XP Professional computer. When I try to use the rectangular marquee tool to select an area of any image the selection marker leaves dotted artifacts across the parts of the images over which the selection marker has passed.
I don't get the problem if I use any of the marquee tools and the artifacts are not actually written to the image. It's not runining the image but it is causing some problems when trying to be precise with my selections.
Has anyone seen this problem before? I can provide screen shots if that would be of any help.
Many thanks in advance,
Mitch

Video driver?

Rectangular Marquee tool broken in CS5.1?

The rectangular marquee tool no longer seems to work when choosing the "Fixed size" option. It seems to just select the entire image area regardless of what values are entered.
This is with version CS5.1 as provided in Creative Suite Design Premium CS5.5.
I've had no problems with this tool in other versions. Can anyone else confirm this behaviour?
I'm running OSX 10.6.7
David

Check the units you specified for the fixed size. My guess is that it's set to something larger than your image.
Yes, thanks - I was just about to post a response to my own question. They were cm, rather than pixels!
Cheers
David

Rectangular marquee tool problem

i used 'rectangular marquee tool to select an area . then i right clicked and select "stroke" . but i am not satisfied with the result , because its corner was slightly jagged ( when i zoom it ) . feather was set to 0 . can anyone help me plz how to fix this ?

May I suggest stroking on the Inside of your Marquee.
Or switching to using the Rectangle Tool. The options for stroking a shape offer a great deal of configurability...
-Noel

Use the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" with my mouse

Hey.
When I use the "Rectangular Marquee Tool" with my mouse, it is often difficult to do it accurately.
Is there an easier way to do it than with the mouse, - can I manually enter the size of my selection ..
Any advice is welcome.

Creating a rectangular marquee to select objects

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