Cand drag or quickly duplicate rectangle

[Jim_Palik]

I am using Illustrator CC on Windows 10. I have several rectangles in a layer. I can change the size by entering the W and H. I can position them by entering the X and Y. I cant drag or duplicate. What is locked?

[Kurt Gold]

Does it happen only in this specific document or in all documents?

If it only happens in this document, can you perhaps share the Illustrator file (.ai)?

[Jim_Palik]

yes

[Jim_Palik]

How do I share.

[Jim_Palik]

I also cannot selecte a rectangle by clicking on it. I can only select it from the Layer Panel.

I have more than 20 similar artboards created. This is the only one that I have this problem on.

Jim

[Kurt Gold]

I think I already told you how to share Illustrator files last week.

Anyway, basically you can use any file sharing server (e.g. Google Drive), upload your file and provide a public download link here in the forum.

You can also use your Adobe Cloud storage and provide a public download link here in the forum.

Another way is to save your file to .pdf with the "Preserve Illustrator Editing capabilities" turned on and insert it as an attachment right here in the forum.

[Jim_Palik]

Thank you Kurt,

I honestly do not remember. I am sharing it with the save to file method now. Don't get old. the memory issue is no fun.

I have the file saved as a PDF as instructed.

Jim

[Kurt Gold]

Thanks for the sample file, Jim.

There are six visible stroked, but unfilled rectangles. I have no problem to select them right on the artboard and (Alt key) drag them around to move or duplicate them.

Perhaps someone else has an idea what may be going wrong, but at least I do not see any anomaly.

[Jim_Palik]

Thank you Kurt. That is correct. These represten matt cutting rectangles. The third layer is where I place the images. As I said, in the last week I have created a dozen filled artboards like this with different layouts with no problem. I am now ready to place the images. But before I do this I will use the original Bill Gates methiod and close Illustratror, reboot the system. I will then open this file and insert the images. Magic may happen. 🙂

Thank you for your effort. I will keep checking back,

Jim

[Jim_Palik]

I just found that I can slect the image my moving my curser to the edge of any rectangle. Does this help?

Jim. Now I am doing Bill Gates.

Jim

[Kurt Gold]

Yes, this is one of the common ways to select objects that are not filled. You cannot click on an unfilled area to select it. That's just the way it works (or does not work) in Illustrator.

I think you don't need the Bill Gates route in this case.

[Larry G. Schneider]

Could have "Object Selection by Path Only" gotten checked in Preferences? If so, uncheck it.

[Kurt Gold]

That was my first thought as well, Larry.

But when you look at Jim's sample file, you will see that this preference setting does not matter in this case since the rectangles have no fill colour at all.