[Tip] Layout shortcuts

by David Workman
Data Mosaic

Select objects:

• Click the layout (not an object) and drag the selection marquee around multiple objects. All completely surrounded objects will be selected.
• Click a non-selected object and drag the selection marquee through other objects. All objects touched will be selected.
• Hold the <ctrl> (mac: <command>) key down and click on objects to add them to the current selected set.
• Select any object and then "select all" from the edit menu to select all objects of the same type as the original object selected. This works with multiple types of original objects selected.

Move objects:

• Click on one of the selected objects and drag.
• Use the arrow keys to move objects by one pixel
• While holding down the <ctrl> key, use the arrow keys to move objects by ten pixels.
• While holding down the <alt> (mac: <option>) key, use the arrow keys to move objects by twenty pixels.
• The ten and twenty pixels are called the "stepsize" amounts and they can be configured to a different amount in the designer preferences.

Resize objects:

• With a single object selected, you can click and drag a corner to resize the object. This does not work with multiple objects selected.
• With any number of objects selected, hold down the shift key while using the arrow combinations above to resize all selected objects. You can quickly resize multiple objects this way by 1, 10 and 20 pixels (or your stepsize defaults).