: Transforming some, but not all, objects in a group using Illustrator? I don't know how to ask this question in general form so I will begin with an example. I would like to scale (and/or

@Ogunnowo857

In modern versions of Illustrator (I'm not sure what version it was introduced) you can create a Symbol with 9-patch guides to achieve this goal exactly.


Create the orange rectangle with two squares, and select all three.
In the Symbols palette, click the New Symbol button at bottom.


In the ensuing dialog, be sure to check "Enable Guides for 9-Slice Scaling".

In the Symbols palette, click the "Symbol Options" button (or click "Edit Symbol" in the control palette, or double-click the symbol in the Symbols palette).


Illustrator will switch to a view where you're editing only the symbol.

Drag the dotted guides so that areas you want to keep unscaled remain outside the middle of the 'box':

At the top of the document, click the arrow to leave editing the symbol and return do your illustration:

Voila! Now, when you scale your symbol instance, the blue squares in the corners will remain unaffected!



If you attempt to scale your symbol so small that the corners MUST scale, they will.

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@Michele215

Groups are pretty blunt tools; either things are grouped or they are not. Since all of the objects are part of a group, they will all be treated as a single object.

The only way around this would be to use the direct selection tool (the white arrow, not the black arrow, at the top of the tool bar), drag-select the parts you want to move, and then click+drag them to the desired location.

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