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# Filtering Objects

By deactivating the types of objects you do not want to include in your selection, you can limit your selection to specific types of objects. Objects that are deactivated cannot be selected, so they are ignored when you select groups of objects with your mouse or use the Select All command.

Objects are activated and deactivated on the Activate tool bar:

Button | Action
--- | ---
| Activates lines.
| Activates rectangles.
| Activates images.
| Activates text boxes and system text boxes.
| Activates data fields. Data field objects include data fields, inline fields, placeable bitmaps, signature fields, circle fields, and barcode fields.

You activate and deactivate the sets of objects by clicking on the tool bar button. If the button looks pushed in, the set of objects is active. If it does not look pushed in, it is inactive. The figure below shows active text boxes and data fields and inactive lines, rectangles and images:

You can choose to hide your deactivated objects, show them grayed out, or show them normally. Usually, showing them grayed out is the best idea because you can tell which objects are inactive but still see their position on the page.

The selection filter is particularly useful when you want to change the font attributes of all the text on a page. You can filter out data fields, lines, rectangles, and images and select only text boxes. You can then change the font properties for all text boxes at once on the composite property page. If you have any system text boxes on your page and you do not want to change their font, you will need to remove them from the selection first.

You can also do the same for data fields, but you will need to remove any placeable bitmaps, signature fields, circle fields, and barcode fields from your selection because they do not have font properties. However, most form pages do not have these objects. If they do there are usually not too many, so removing them from the selection group is not difficult.

Note:

If you set Text Display to Yes for your barcode fields and you select a barcode field and a data field, the font properties will appear. If you set Text Display to No, the font properties will not appear because the barcode field will not have any font properties.

To select a group of objects of a given type

1. Activate the type of object you want to select and deactivate the others.

2. Place your mouse pointer at the place where you want to start your selection.

3. Hold your left mouse button down and drag the mouse until the selection box encloses all the objects you want to select. Only the type of object you have activated will be selected.

4. If there are objects you do not want to include, press and hold it down while you click on the ones you want to remove.

To select all objects of a given type

1. Activate the object you want to select and deactivate the others.

2. Open the Edit menu and click Select All. All objects on the current page that are permitted by your filter will be selected.

3. If there are objects you do not want to include, press and hold it down while you click on the ones you want to remove.

To hide or gray out inactive objects

1. Open the View menu and select Show Inactive. A submenu will appear.

2. The current display state for inactive objects will be checked. Click on the one you want:

Display State | Description
Show | Shows inactive objects.
Hide | Hides all inactive objects.
Gray | Grays out inactive objects, leaving them still visible.