Temporary Groups (“Selections”)

Objects can be collected into groups by selecting them together. Whenever you select multiple objects at the same time, you are putting them into a temporary group, or “selection.”

There are three ways to establish temporary groups. If the objects you wish to group are relatively close to one another on the page, simply click the Work Window away from the objects and drag your mouse pointer over them to draw a bounding box. Only objects that are completely within the bounding box will be selected. The bounding box indicates that the objects are all selected as a temporary group object, and the Status Bar at the bottom of the Work Window will indicate how many objects are selected.

If the objects you wish to group are not close to one another, click one object, press the CTRL key, and then click again on additional items to add them to the temporary group. Clicking an object a second time, with the CTRL key pressed, will remove it from the selection.

The last way to form a temporary group is to select all objects on the page by choosing Edit>Select All or by pressing the CTRL+A keyboard shortcut.

Once objects are in temporary groups, you can do the following to them:

You can also open the Quick Properties Editor, the Object Editor, the Shading Editor, or the Geometry Editor to apply transformations and colors, but these settings will apply only to the temporary group object and not to the objects themselves.

Most importantly, you can convert a temporary group into a permanent group using the group command. Unless a temporary group is converted into a permanent group, it will be dissolved when you click your mouse anywhere else on the Work Window or perform any other operation

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