Select Off-Artboard Objects
Script for Adobe Illustrator
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Description
This script for Adobe Illustrator helps you easily select objects that are either inside or outside the boundaries of your artboards. It's particularly useful for cleaning up designs by finding and managing stray objects outside your active work area.
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What It Does
- Selects objects that are either inside or outside artboards.
- Works with all artboards, the active artboard, or a specific artboard.
- Allows you to set a tolerance value to control how strictly objects must be inside/outside boundaries.
- Shows a count and location of selected objects after execution.
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Installation
1. Download the Select Off-Artboard Objects.jsx script file.
2. Place it in your Adobe Illustrator Scripts folder:
⮑ Mac: /Applications/Adobe Illustrator[Version]/Presets/<Language>/Scripts/
⮑ Windows: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Illustrator [Version]\Presets\<Language>\Scripts\
3. Restart Illustrator if it's already running.
4. Go to File > Scripts > Select Off-Artboard Objects.
5. The dialog window will appear with the following options:
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Using the Script
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➊ Selection Mode
Choose whether to select objects that are:
- Inside artboards
- Outside artboards
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➋ Artboard Selection
Select which artboard to use:
- All Artboards
- Active Artboard
- Any specific artboard from the dropdown list
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Tip: When changing artboard selections, the view will automatically zoom to your selected artboard.
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➌ Tolerance
Adjust the tolerance value (in your document's current units):
- Higher values create a larger buffer zone around the artboard edge
- Use the slider or enter a value directly
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➍ Apply Selection
- Click "OK" to apply your selection
- An alert message will appear showing how many objects were selected
- The view will automatically zoom to fit your selection
- Click "Cancel" to exit without making any changes
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Additional Notes
- Use this script to clean up your document by finding and removing stray objects.
- The tolerance setting is useful for objects that slightly overlap artboard edges.
- Increase the tolerance to create a more relaxed selection boundary.
- Use the specific artboard option to focus on cleaning up one area at a time.
- Click the icon ⏼ in the bottom right corner to access the user guide.
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☻ Conclusion
With this powerful script in your toolkit, you'll be able to quickly locate and manage objects that are straying outside your artboards or focus specifically on content within them. This not only helps keep your Illustrator documents clean and organized but also streamlines your workflow when preparing files for export or handoff.
Whether you're working on complex illustrations with multiple artboards or simply want to tidy up your workspace, the Select Off-Artboard Objects script provides a simple solution to what was previously a tedious manual task.
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