How to lock, group, and hide content

Lock, group, and hide content in Adobe Illustrator CC to make it simpler to select artwork.

What you'll need

What you learned: How and why to lock, group, and hide artwork

Make it simpler to select and edit content by locking, grouping, and hiding artwork.

Hide content to make selections

To make selecting other artwork simpler, hide selected artwork by choosing Object > Hide > Selection, or pressing Option+3 (macOS) or Alt+3 (Windows) on the keyboard.
To show all hidden artwork, choose Object > Show All.

Lock content to make selections

View artwork in Outline mode

To facilitate selecting content, choose View > Outline to show the artwork as outlines without fills.
To show the artwork with the original appearance, choose View > Preview (or GPU Preview).

Group artwork

Select content in the group

If you need to select content within a group, double-click the group with the Selection tool to enter Isolation mode.
To exit Isolation mode, press the Escape key.

Back to: Select artwork | Up next: Rotate, reflect and shear

02/13/2019

Presenter: Brian Wood