Selecting Similar Objects

Use the Select Similar tool to select objects that have features in common with a specific object. This can be useful if you need to move or modify a large number of similar objects, such as windows. It can also make it easier to locate similar objects in a drawing that is very crowded.

Walls and objects within walls cannot be selected at the same time. Therefore, sometimes the objects selected by this tool may not be as expected. For example, you cannot select a set of walls and then use Current Selection mode to select all windows within those walls.

To select similar objects:

1. To select from a specific set of objects, select the objects first.

2. Click the Select Similar tool from the Basic tool palette.

3. Click Preferences from the Tool bar to specify the set of object attributes to match. The Select Similar Preferences dialog box opens.

Alternatively, select a set of saved attributes from the Settings list on the Tool bar.

Click to show/hide the parameters.

Parameter	Description
Saved Settings Options
Settings	Select <Active Settings> to use the attributes currently selected in the dialog box; to use a set of saved attributes, select them from the pull-down list
Save	Opens a dialog box to name and save the currently selected attributes so that they can quickly be selected as a set
Manage	Opens the Saved Settings dialog box to rename or delete sets of saved tool attributes
All	Each group of attributes has this option, to make it easy to quickly select and deselect attributes. ●    Checked box: All attributes in the group are selected; click to deselect all attributes in the group. ●    Empty box: No attributes in the group are selected; click to select all attributes in the group. ●    Box displays (Windows) or  (Mac): One or more attributes in the group are not selected; click to select all attributes in the group.
Fill Attributes	Selects objects with matching fills, including foreground and background colors, styles (pattern, hatch, gradient, or image fill), and textures
Text Attributes	Selects text objects, dimensions, or plug-in objects with matching text attributes, including font, size, font style, alignment, and spacing
Wall, Slab, and Roof Attributes	Selects walls, slabs, roofs, and roof faces with matching thicknesses, components, and styles (Vectorworks Design Series required for wall, slab, and roof styles) When Style is selected, but Thickness and Components are not, all unstyled objects are considered similar regardless of their other attributes. To limit the selection to unstyled objects with similar thickness or components, select those attributes in addition to Style.
Pen Attributes	Selects objects with matching pen foreground and background colors, styles (solid, pattern, or line type), and line thicknesses
Other Attributes	Selects objects with various other matching attributes
Line End Marker	Selects line objects with matching end markers, including styles and sizes

4. Select the similar attributes to use for the selection, and click OK.

5. Click the object that is similar to the objects you want to find.

An alert displays if the clicked object is not appropriate for the selected attributes (for example, if the Font attribute is selected, but a plant object is clicked).

6. The similar objects are selected.

Click here for a video tip about this topic (Internet access required).

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Managing Saved Settings

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