Skip to content

How can we improve Illustrator (desktop)? Vote or share a new idea — one request per entry, please.

← Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests

Select same, with multiple selectable attributes and customisations

When using the Select Same feature we need a lot more options, like all objects with the same transparency effect AND opacity AND tint AND line weight etc, that can be selected from a list of attributes. Same sort of list as the options list for the Eyedropper Tool (see screenshot).

It should be split into sections that allow vectors graphics selections as above, but also things like selecting all linked items that are the same file AND the same size AND rotation AND opacity.

Selecting all text in a certain colour, font, size, style so they can be updated en masse would help too (overlapping with another suggestion here).

You can then tick as many as you like before performing the select using your chosen filters. A preview mode would be useful too, so you can see what you're picking up.

Once set, selected filters should be saveable and accessable from a scrollable list alongside the filter window for instant selection without opening a save / load screen.

Finally, each select same filter window should have an option to add / subtract from the current selection, so selctions can be stacked / refined.

This would be a huge time-saver when updating many files with similar changes whether to update embedded elements, for corporate image updates or technical changes like minimum line thickness.

18 votes
Jason Edmunds shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
How important is this to you?

We're glad you're here

Please sign in to leave feedback
Signed in as (Sign out)
Close
Submitting...
An error occurred while saving the comment
  • Alex Titze commented  ·   ·  Report

    I know this Feature Request is very old, but unfortunately I noticed that the selection Same > Size is still missing.
    In projects where many paths/symbols of a certain size need to be selected, this would be really useful.

  • Guylain Leclerc commented  ·   ·  Report

    Les options du menu Sélection sont très peu performantes et offrent peu de possibilité et aucune souplesse. Pourquoi ne peut-on toujours pas sélectionner un objet par types d'objets, par couleurs à partir d'une fenêtre où l'on pourrait nous mêmes définir les options plutôt que d'être contraint d'utiliser celles actuelles qui sont très limitées et rigides. Il faudrait reproduire l'outil de sélection, recherche et remplacement autrefois utilisé dans Freehand produit par Macromedia qu'Adobe a acheté dans les années 2005 environ. Ça c'était un outil incroyablement performant, souple et polyvalent. J'utilise Illustrator pour la cartographie et chaque carte contient une très grandes quantités de petits objets. Un tel outil amélioré est nécessaire pour m'assurer qu'une même catégorie d'objets soit uniforme. Êtes-vous capable de faire mieux? Voir le fichier joint.

    The options in the Selection menu are very inefficient and offer little possibility and no flexibility. Why can't we still select an object by object type, by color from a window where we could define the options ourselves rather than being forced to use the current ones which are very limited and rigid. You should reproduce the Find, Replace and Select tool formerly used in Freehand produced by Macromedia that Adobe bought around 2005. That was an incredibly powerful, flexible and versatile tool. I use Illustrator for mapping and each map contains a very large amount of small objects. Such an improved tool is needed to ensure that a same category of objects is uniform. Are you able to do better? See the attached file.

  • Marc commented  ·   ·  Report

    Thanks, Egor. I didn't know of that option! I wish it was closer to the select options so it was more obvious.

    I also wish there was a way to adjust multiple tints with differing fills at once. So tint settings would be independent of fills, but I know this is a kind of unique use case. So more generally I'm just looking for a robust selection system that can combine attributes granularly as described by the OP.

    Thanks for the tip though. That will definitely come in handy!

  • Marc commented  ·   ·  Report

    I think this is a great idea.

    An addition to select same tint on it's own would be nice, but to expand it so you can select the same tint % plus a fill or stroke would allow you to choose between selecting specifically any matching tint %, or a tint % of a particular fill.

    Select same fill could then be made to select only the fill, whereas now it select the fill regardless of tint %, meaning if your goal is to select the same fill and change the swatch, any tints in use are discarded.

    So a robust selection dialog with many parameters that can be combined in granular form would be a game changer.

  • Brennan Young commented  ·   ·  Report

    This would be a compellingly useful improvement to the UI.

    Add to / Remove from selection would get much of the way, but being able to combine 'Same...' criteria with checkboxes or some such would be extremely useful. Basically a Selection Filter editor.

    Other useful selection criteria:

    Locked
    In Layers below
    In Layers above
    Wider than... / Narrower than (some value)
    Taller than / Shorter than (some value)
    Font size greater than... / less than...
    Same Font
    Bounding box / x,y outside artboard
    x/y greater / less than (some value)
    Overlaps objects/paths in current selection

Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests: Selection

Categories

Feedback and Knowledge Base

(thinking…)