Property Pages for Groups of Objects

When you select more than one object, a composite object property page is dis­played. On the Object property page tab, you will see a number in paren­theses. This is the number of objects selected. Properties that have the same value for all selected objects display a value. Properties with different values display “…” in the value field instead.

If you select different types of objects, only the properties that apply to the selected objects will appear. For example, if you select a rectangle and a line, you will see Line properties because they both have lines. You will not see Fill properties or Corner properties because lines do not have these properties.

If you select data fields and text boxes, you will see Size and Position, For­matting, and Font properties because they both have those properties. However, if you select a data field and an inline field, you will only see Font pro­perties because inline data fields do not have formatting, size, or positioning properties.

Data fields, placeable bitmaps, signature fields, inline fields, barcode fields, and circle fields also have a field property page. If your selected group contains any of these objects, you will also see a composite field property page. The number displayed on the Field tab is the number of objects selected that have field properties. Unless you have only selected objects with field properties, the numbers on the Object tab and the Field tab will be different.

When you select more than one object, you can use the composite property page to set identical values for the properties they share. This can save you a lot of time. For example, you may want to change the text font in a number of text boxes or data fields or set all your lines to the same thickness.