- [Narrator] In this movie I'll show you how to select
and move multiple art boards using the art board tool
and it's ultimately a matter of pressing the Shift key.
And so notice a problem we're having right now
if I were to click on the big number one
using the black arrow tool
which is active at the top of the tool box
then you can see that its bounding box
overlaps into art board five
and the same is true of the number two
overlapping into art board six,
three overlapping into art board seven, and so forth.
What I want to do is space the art boards
farther apart from each other
in order to create this effect here
so that we have no overlaps whatsoever.
Alright so I'll go ahead and switch over
to my document at hand here
and I'll select the art board tool
which you can get by pressing Shift + O.
Notice at this point art board three is selected.
If I wanted to select art board one instead
then I would just click on it using the art board tool
and notice that goes ahead and selects art board one
and deselects art board three
as indicated by this blue dotted rectangle
along with the scaling handles.
If I wanted to add art board five to the selection
then instead of clicking on it
which would deselect art board one
I would shift-click, so notice, in this case,
I went ahead and shift-clicked on art board one
to add it to the selection that includes art board five.
If I was to turn around
and shift-click on art board five at this point
I would deselect it so that only art board one is selected
if I wanted to deselect it as well,
I would shift-click again.
So shift-clicking is a toggle, in other words,
it's either going to add an art board to the selection
or subtract that art board.
In my case though, once again,
I want to select both art boards one and five
so I'll click on art board one
shift-click on art board five
and now let's say I want to move these two art boards
100 points over to the left.
Well I could just go ahead and drag them
and notice, because my smart guides are turned on,
I'm seeing these X and Y coordinate values
in that tiny heads up display.
The problem is, these are absolute values,
not relative ones, so they don't tell me
how far I'm moving my art boards
they're just showing me
what the new coordinate positions are going to be
which frankly doesn't really do me any good
and in my case I've gone ahead and moved the art boards
without moving the numbers
and that's because this icon up here in the control panel
move slash copy art work with art board is turned off.
And so what I need to do is press Control + Z
or Command + Z on the Mac to undo that move
and then turn that icon on
so that I move numbers one and five
along with their art boards.
But again, the problem is,
I don't know how far I've moved those art boards
down and to the left.
So I'm going to undo that movement
once again by pressing Control + Z
or Command + Z on a Mac,
and then I want you to notice this X value
that's active up here in the control panel.
If you click after it you can add or subtract points
so for example if I entered plus 100 after the value
and then press the Enter key or the Return key on a Mac
I would move the art boards 100 points to the right.
That's not what I want, I want to go to the left,
so I'll press Control + Z
or Command + Z on the Mac to undo that change
and then I'll click after this value,
and enter minus 100, like so,
and then press the Enter key or the Return key on a Mac
and everything works out the way I want.
Alright now I want to move art boards
five through eight downward
so I'll shift-click on art board one to turn it off
and then I'll shift-click on art board six, seven, and eight
in order to add them to the selection
and now I could just go ahead and drag these guys downward
but notice if I do, I move the one, two, three, and four
because they're overlapping the lower art boards,
obviously not what I want, so I'll press Control + Z
or Command + Z on the Mac to undo that change.
What I need to do instead is move the top art boards upward
and so I'm going to take advantage of a different technique.
I'm going to click off the art boards
in order to deselect all of them
and then you want to marquee the top art boards
by dragging across them.
Now with any other tool inside Illustrator
you would just perform a standard drag as we're seeing here
but where the art board tool is concern
that goes ahead and creates a new art board
which is not what I want.
So I'll press Control + Z or Command + Z on the Mac
in order to undo that change
and instead I'll press and hold the Shift key.
And notice as soon as I do
the appearance of my cursor changes
from this kind of box here, to this arrowhead,
and then, if I drag, once again,
while the Shift key is down,
I will go ahead and marquee those top art boards
so that they all become selected.
And now, as you can see, I can drag them free and clear
of the bottom numbers,
but I don't know how far that movement is.
And so I'll go ahead and press Control + Z
or Command + Z on the Mac to undo that move
and then notice this Y value up here in the control panel,
if I click after it, and enter plus 100,
then I will move the art boards downward,
not what I want, so I'll press Control + Z,
Command + Z on a Mac, and I'll click after that value
and enter minus 100
in order to move the art boards upward like so.
Alright now shift marqueeing is also a toggle
and so if I were to press the Shift key
and then at least just partially-marquee
art boards one and two, then I will turn them off,
so only art boards three and four remain selected
and then notice what happens
if I shift-click on art board eight.
We end up with this big bounding box
that includes art board seven
even though art board seven is not selected
and I can tell that it's not selected
because art boards three, four, and eight
have blue borders around them
whereas art board seven does not
so it's a pretty darn subtle distinction
but it is something to keep an eye out for
because notice now,
if I drag anyone of the selected art boards
that I move three, four, and eight,
but I leave seven where it was.
Alright I'm going to undo that movement
again by pressing Control + Z or Command + Z on a Mac
and now I want you to notice that both the X and Y values
up here in the control panel are blank
and if they're blank I can't perform any arithmetic,
by the way, so what I'm going to do,
is shift-click on art board three to turn it off
so only art boards four and eight are selected
and now I need to move them to the right 200 points
to allow room for art boards three and seven
to move 100 points to the right
and so I'm going to click after the X value
up here in the control panel
and I'll enter plus 200, so once again,
plus moves things to the right,
minus move things to the left,
and then I'll press the Enter key
or the Return key on a Mac to perform that movement.
And now I want to move art boards three and seven
but if I shift-marquee them
I will add them to the selection
so notice that four and eight are still selected
which isn't going to do me any good.
And so I have two options that are available to me,
one is to press and hold the Shift key
and then partially-marquee
art boards four and eight to turn them off
or if you end up just making kind of a mess of things
and you add art boards to the selection
and you have no idea what's going on then
just click off of them to deselect everybody
and then I'll go ahead and shift-marquee
art boards three and seven, so that they're selected,
as you can see here on screen,
I'll click after the X value
and I'll enter plus 100 this time around
in order to scoot those guys 100 points to the right
and now I'll click off my art boards to deselect everybody
and I'll go up to the view menu
and choose fit all in window
so that I can see all eight of my art boards on screen.
And then, assuming that you're done,
go ahead and press the Escape key
in order to exit the art board editing mode
and return control to the black arrow tool.
And that's how you select and move
multiple art boards at a time
either by shift-clicking or shift-marqueeing
using the art board tool.