How to "select all" drawing objects in Word?

January 6, 2009 1:46 PM

Is it possible to "select all" drawing objects at one time in Word 2000 (in order to move them together) rather than holding down the SHIFT key and selecting them individually?

I need to add titles to the axes of a graph that's a picture embedded in a Word document. Right now, the margins of the picture don't allow room for this. I can adjust the bottom margin of the picture but when I try to adjust the left margin, the graph just moves to the left, so I can't make room for the axis title that way.

The solution I've come up with, since I can't seem to enlarge the canvas of the picture (does anyone know how?), is to move all the elements of the graph to the left. Currently, I have to select each element using the SHIFT key, then move them together, which is time-consuming (there are TONS of little "pieces") and can lead to errors. I'd love to be able to select all elements at once and move them at once. I thought "Group" might work, but you still have to select individually. Help!

(PS--If more recent versions of Word provide a solution, I'd love to hear it.)

posted by roxie110 to computers & internet (2 answers total)

If you open the drawing toolbar there's an icon at the very left which is like the regular windows arrow but pointing in the other direction (left vs right, I'm not on a windows machine now so I can't check). Anyway, select that arrow and then you can select objects by area - just click in one corner of the page and drag to the opposite diagonal corner. That should select every object on the page. If you need fewer objects selected you can probably work out how to do it. The tool turns off after a single drag-select so if you want to reselect, you'll have to click on the toolbar again to get into object select mode.
posted by GuyZero at 2:10 PM on January 6, 2009

You are a genius! Thank you so much. I don't know why that didn't come up in Help despite much searching.

Anyone have an idea, now, how to enlarge the canvas, so nothing has to be moved?
posted by roxie110 at 5:38 PM on January 10, 2009