GROUP (Command)

Groups provide an easy way to combine several objects that you need to manipulate as a unit. By default, selecting any member of a group selects all the objects in that group, and you can move, copy, rotate, and modify groups just as you can with individual objects. After you are done with a group, it is just as easy to ungroup the objects. The commands are GROUP and UNGROUP. If you enter -GROUP at the Command prompt, options are displayed.

Groups can be named or unnamed. If you plan to organize and access objects in a drawing using groups, give the group a name with the Name option of the GROUP command. Select groups by name by entering group and the group name at any Select Objects prompt. Unnamed groups are best for temporary groupings.
Objects can be members of more than one group. Selecting an object that belongs to multiple groups selects all groups to which that object belongs.

The following prompts are displayed.

Select Objects

Specifies which objects should be grouped.

Name

Assigns a name to the group of items you select.

Description

Adds a description of the group. The description is displayed with the -GROUP command when you use the asterisk (*) to list existing groups.

To group objects (unnamed group)

The fastest way to group objects is to create an unnamed group.

Select the objects you want to group.
Type GROUP in the command line and press Enter. The selected objects are grouped together into an unnamed group, which is assigned a default name such as *A1.

Note: Avoid creating large groups containing hundreds or thousands of objects. A large group significantly degrades performance.

To create a named group

Type GROUP in the command line and press Enter.
At the prompt, enter n and type a name for the group.
Select the objects to group and press Enter.

To rename a group

Type GROUP in the command line and press Enter.
Select the group you want to rename.
At the prompt, enter ren (rename).
Enter a new name.

To Add or Remove Objects From a Group

Type GROUP in the command line and press Enter.
In the drawing area, select a group.
At the prompt, do one of the following:
- enter a to add objects
- enter r to remove objects
Select objects to add to, or remove from, the group.

Note: If deleting an object or removing it from a group leaves the group empty, the group remains defined but without any members. Exploding an object such as a block or hatch that belongs to a group does not automatically add the resulting components to any group.

-GROUP (Command)

Creates and manages saved sets of objects called groups.

Groups provide an easy way to combine drawing objects that you need to manipulate as a unit. By default, selecting any member of a group selects all the objects in that group, and you can move, copy, rotate, and modify groups just as you can modify individual objects.

The following prompts are displayed.

?—List Groups

Lists names and descriptions of groups defined in the drawing.

Order

Changes the numerical order of objects within a group. Reordering is useful when creating tool paths. For example, you can change the cut order for the horizontal and vertical lines of a tool path pattern.

Position Number

Specifies the position number of the object to reorder. To reorder a range of objects, specify the first object's position number.

Reverse Order

Reverses the order of all members in a group.

Add

Adds objects to a group.

Remove

Removes objects from a group.

If you remove all the group's objects, the group remains defined. You can remove the group definition from the drawing by using the Explode option.

Explode

Deletes a group definition by exploding the group into its component objects.

Rename

Assigns a new name to an existing group.

Selectable

Specifies whether a group is selectable. When a group is selectable, selecting one object in the group selects the whole group. Objects on locked or frozen layers are not selected.

Create

Creates a group.

Group names can be up to 31 characters long and can include letters, numbers, and special characters dollar sign ($), hyphen (-), and underscore (_) but not spaces. The name is converted to uppercase characters.