Selecting objects which are fully inside the marquee or lasso

[dzgnr89]

How can I select objects which are completely inside the marquee or a lasso? Currently by default illustrator selects all the objects whether they're just touching the selection marquee or are completely inside it, I have to deselect objects that just touch the selection marquee while selection objects which are completely inside my selection box.

In AutoCAD, and SketchUp, drawing from right to left while selecting objects selects everything that touches or encloses our marquee, while drawing the selection box left to right, it only selects objects which are totally inside the selection rectangle.

Please guide.

I am using Illustrator CC 2019 on WIndows 10 

[Anna Lander]

no way. Illustrator always selects the whole objects which are at least touched (Selection tool or Group Selection tool) or the points which are inside the drawn area (Direct Selection tool, Lasso tool). Modificators just switch the tools or allow to add/remove something to selection.

[Myra Ferguson]

While there isn't an option to only select objects completely inside a selection, there are a bunch of different ways to make selections --like by various attributes or other tools. Can you describe a little more about the scenario, and maybe we can find a different technique to help?

[dzgnr89]

Here's what my file looks like. 

Here's how I want to organize it a little. 

The inner members of the pergola at the top should go on a separate layer. Its outer profile lines should go on a separate layer.

Currently selecting with lassso, then deselecting elements, click by click, then dropping them in layers, then removing unwanted elements in layers is what I'm doing. 

My file is uploaded here. 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t2zqso7zbyvjcal/sample%20test.ai?dl=0

[Monika Gause]

I think you might be more successful if you try and tug away the other elements first: everything that has yellow fills, etc. Put it on its own layer, then see what's left.

You could also try out the new "Global Edit" function. Maybe you can apply a neon green stroke to them and then better select them all?

[schroef]

@Myra Ferguson @dzgnr89 

Actually there is, when you use regular select oe group select tool, once you click and drag, you can press E. This is a toggle button and now only all items with the marque are selected.

I wish they would add this to the lasso tool as well.

The part about selecting enclosed items

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/selecting-objects.html

I know this is an old post. But it can be helpful for others. It's kinda of a hidden festure

[Anna Lander]

well, yes, the drawings from AutoCad are not so easy to work in Illustrator.

What I tried to do (it was quite quick):

1. As the lines are in 2 appearances, solid and dashed, I used Select > Same > Appearance command and grouped the selected objects. This way I isolated the lines from all other parts of artwork. You can also temporarily turn Off the group's visibility to see better other objects.

2. Without the contours, it's easy to select the needed filled objects. Now it was enough to just click on the top light-blue elements with Shift keeping. In other cases you can use lasso or Select > Same > /the needed property/ command. So I moved the selected objects to the new layer ("Silhouette").

3. Activate Isolated mode for contours (double-click on any line in the group).

4. This step is not so nise because all parts of the outline are divided by intersection points. It's no way to select them together and not catch others with the same properties. So I suggest to start from the outer part which must be moved to Silhouette layer. Select them (I clicked at the each dash with Shift), cut and paste-in-place on the needed layer.

5. This will create an empty area around the inner elements and you can select them by lasso easily.

the result: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1hEg7zwMGWZxyZCkBQNrzX7MOG2TAL-rS

I hope this workaround can help to do the job a bit faster 🙂

[rcraighead]

I think the Lasso Selection tool could be used to advantage in a case like this. 

• Fully select a set of items.
• Lasso on the diagonal while holding "Option/Alt" to deselect unwanted items.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLa7Q8usy7M