Select Objects Only

In many programs you may be familiar with (PowerPoint, Visio, Photoshop), you can drag a "box" around multiple objects that you want to select (sometimes referred to as the "click-drag"). Trying to "click-drag" in Excel will only have you selecting a range of cells, unless you use the feature we're going to describe in this post.

Most of what you'll do in Excel will exist within cells (data, functions, etc.). Things that exist outside of cells (and appear to be sitting on a layer in front of the cells) are referred as Objects. The most common object you'll encounter is probably a chart, but an object could be a picture that you inserted (perhaps a company logo) or shapes (such as those used in making a flow chart). 

Let's start with a simple workbook with some objects on it. To use the Select Objects feature, go to the Home ribbon, click Find & Select, and then choose Select Objects.

Now you can click-drag to easily select the objects on your screen. Notice also that you cannot select your cells anymore. (If you forget that you have Select Objects turned on and you're not thinking about it, it can be incredibly confusing why you all of a sudden can no longer select any cells).

One other nice feature is the Selection Pane, which is located directly below the Select Objects option. This brings up a pane on the right (although you can actually move it) that displays the objects on your currently active worksheet. You can also hide your objects by clicking the "eye" icon.

I generally bring up the selection pane for a couple of different circumstances. The first is if I'm simply having trouble selecting an object, perhaps because my worksheet might have a lot of them. Another, more advanced, reason is when I'm writing code that references the objects. I might have an number of objects, each associated with a particular cell, that turns a color (or is hidden) when a cell is a particular value. The simplest way to write code that achieves this aim is to rename the object something intuitive, such as the cell name ("A4"). The Selection Pane allows you to double-click on the item in the pane and rename it.