Selecting and unselecting objects in the current viewport are straightforward operations that use standard methods. For more information on selecting viewports, see “Selecting viewports,” Section 4.3.2.
Preselection highlighting allows you to preview which object ABAQUS/CAE will select if you click at the current cursor location. In addition, preselection in the Sketcher uses a secondary cursor to indicate the exact position and type of entity that will be selected. (For more information on Sketcher preselection, see “The Sketcher cursors and preselection,” Section 19.4.5.)
You will use the following three selection operations most frequently:
Click to select an object
To select a single object from the current viewport, move the cursor to the object and click mouse button 1.
To select a point, click the corresponding point marker. The point marker changes color when selected. Vertices that you can select are marked by small, filled circles; and datum points are marked by small, unfilled circles. (See “Understanding the role of datum geometry,” Section 40.1, for information on datum points.) Edge midpoints and arc centers that you can select are marked by small diamonds.
Note: Some of the selection markers that appear when you are using the Sketch module are different from those described here. For information on selecting objects while using the Sketch module, see “The Sketcher cursors and preselection,” Section 19.4.5.
To select an edge, click the edge while positioning the cursor away from any vertex. Selected edges are highlighted.
To select a face, click the face while positioning the cursor away from any edge or vertex. Selected faces are highlighted with a grid pattern. (The grid pattern is unrelated to mesh element location.)
To select a cell, click any of its faces. All edges of selected cells are highlighted.
If you are unable to select the desired objects, you can change the selection behavior by clicking the selection options tool 
in the prompt area. For more information, see “Using the selection options,” Section 6.3.
Once you select an object, any objects previously selected in the current viewport are unselected automatically.
If your current procedure, options, and cursor position do not clearly specify one object for preselection, ABAQUS/CAE highlights all of the potential selections and adds ellipsis marks (...) next to the cursor arrow to indicate an ambiguous preselection. If you accept an ambiguous preselection or otherwise make an ambiguous selection, use the buttons in the prompt area to make your final selection. For more information, see “Cycling through valid selections,” Section 6.2.6.
[Shift]+Click to select additional objects
To select an additional object, move the cursor to the object and [Shift]+Click. Your original selection remains highlighted, and the newly selected object becomes highlighted.
An alternative method for selecting multiple objects is to drag a rectangle around the objects. For more information, see “Drag-selecting multiple objects,” Section 6.2.2.
[Ctrl]+Click to unselect objects
To unselect an object, move the cursor to the object and [Ctrl]+Click. To unselect all objects, click an unused region of the current viewport.
When you have finished selecting and unselecting items in the viewport, click mouse button 2 to confirm your selection. You might find it useful to use the selection option tools to adjust the shape of the drag-select region. You can also choose which objects are selected by the drag-select region. To access the selection option tools, click in the prompt area. For more information, see “Modifying the shape of the drag-select region,” Section 6.3.5, and “Choosing which objects are selected by the drag-select region,” Section 6.3.6.
