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Answered

Moving sublayer to different layer without dragging

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
March 1, 2021
3 replies
4970 views

Here is the situation, I have an imported AI file that came from AutoCAD. Within each layer are hundreds or thousands of sublayers, mostly called <path>.

I want to be able to select a feature within the drawing and quickly change it to a different layer. I attached a photo. I want to change the color of specific building footprints quickly, and I was planning on creating a new layer that has the different colored buildings within that layer. My problem is that to manually drag each sublayer out of the layer and into the new layer takes minutes per move due to the large amount of sublayers.

In other software, you can manually move to a new layer via a drop down box that eliminates having to drag each selection. Is there anything similar to this in Illustrator? Dragging is very inefficient for me.

This topic has been closed for replies.

Correct answer michelew83603738

In the screen clipping provided, you're seeing sublayers within the top layer. I want to move it to a seperate top layer, which I think requires scrolling all the up and out of this layer to the layer I want to move it to. There are hundreds or thousands of sublayers to scroll past. Is that the only option?

@Kurt Gold has a good answer, but unless I am misunderstanding something, you can also keep the layer panel closed, shift click on the items you want moved, create a new layer, then clicking on the box in the first layer, slide it into the new layer. It will move everything you selected into the new layer and you don't ever need to expand the layer panel with the hundreds of paths. The only time you might run into a problem is if there are clipping paths or other funky things going on in that original layer.

G

Glen Johnson

Participant

Hi came up with an alternative solution if you want to try this method. Select the objects you want to move into a new or different layer. Then use Layer Menu> Collect In New Layer. Then open the Layer Menu> Panel Options. Check "Show Layers Only". Then move that new layer you just made into another layer.

Monika Gause

Community Expert

Why would you want to hide the contents of the layers?

G

Glen Johnson

Participant

You would potentially need to use this for the case when you have thousands of objects not orginized into any layers because you recieved a file from someone who did not orginize their illustrator file well, and you need to move objects into layers. Dragging from one layer to another can end up taking a very long time. I just had to do this again and had to look it up again because illustrator does a pretty poor job of making layer management easy when you have very complicated files. For whatever reason photoshop seems to work in a very logical way when copying and pasting multiple objects from one layer to another. It seems illustrator should work the same way, but it doesn't.

Kurt Gold

Community Expert

I can imagine that cutting the objects, followed by selecting (highlighting) the target layer and pasting the clipboard while the "Paste Remembers Layer" option is disabled in the flyout menu of the Layers palette may help in this case.

morganc85662175Author

Participating Frequently

That is an elegant solution that I wouldn't have considered. Thank you, I'll have to try it out

Met1

Legend

Select your item, in the layers panel there will be a blue square showing your selection, drag that to the layer you want it on.

morganc85662175Author

Participating Frequently

Right, I understand that, but based in my question I was inquiring if there was an alternative method. The dragging method takes several minutes due to the large quantity of sublayers within the layer.

michelew83603738

Correct answer

Community Expert

In the screen clipping provided, you're seeing sublayers within the top layer. I want to move it to a seperate top layer, which I think requires scrolling all the up and out of this layer to the layer I want to move it to. There are hundreds or thousands of sublayers to scroll past. Is that the only option?

@Kurt Gold has a good answer, but unless I am misunderstanding something, you can also keep the layer panel closed, shift click on the items you want moved, create a new layer, then clicking on the box in the first layer, slide it into the new layer. It will move everything you selected into the new layer and you don't ever need to expand the layer panel with the hundreds of paths. The only time you might run into a problem is if there are clipping paths or other funky things going on in that original layer.

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