Quick Select

Quick Select allows you to use criteria for selecting objects. For instance you want to select all blocks of a given name:

Open your Properties palette by clicking the Properties button on the Standard Toolbar (or Modify > Properties, or Ctrl+1, or PROPERTIES at the command line). Click the Quick Select button in the upper right corner of the Properties palette.

This brings up the Quick Select dialog. Work this dialog from the top down.

• Apply the selection criteria to the Entire drawing, or limit it to a specific area or selection set by clicking on the Select objects button at the right.
• Set the Object type to Block Reference.
• The Property to select by is Name.
• The Operator to use is Equals. Set the Value to the desired Block name, e.g. EP-502.

Click OK and AutoCAD, in this example, selects all Blocks in the current space whose Name equals EP-502.

This information is now displayed in the Properties palette.

Now you can do something against this selection set. Say you want to change the scale of all of these block symbols from 72 to 96. Notice the X, Y, and Z scales of the currently selected blocks; the Y scale varies. This probably means that some of the Blocks were Mirrored and the Y scale is negative. If we simply change the scale to 96 for all three scales, we would "flip" the mirrored Blocks.

So, we first need to refine our selection set. Click the Quick Select button again.

This time:

• Apply criteria to the Current selection to further modify it.
• Leave the Object type as Block Reference.
• Change the selection Property to Scale Y.
• Use Great than as the Operator.
• and enter 0 for the Value.

Click OK and examine the results in the Properties palette.

There should be fewer selected blocks (only blocks with positive Y Scales) and the Scale Y will (hopefully) now read the same as the X and Z scales. Change these values to 96 to rescale your Blocks: X=96, Y=96, and Z=96.

Perform these operations again, using a Less than operator this time, to rescale the mirrored Blocks as well: X=96, Y=-96, and Z=96.

Use Quick Select to apply all manner of criteria to your selections.