How to select one item in a group without also copying it?

[misc33]

I have read on this forum that in order to quickly access an element of my design that is part of a group, I need to command click it. That works well half the time, but the other half of the time I find myself with a duplicate of the element I'm trying to select. This gets very messy very quickly!

 

How can I make sure that I'm just selecting the element I want, not copying it? Also, why does AD have command as the click-drag copy key, rather than option/alt?

[MEB]

Hi misc33,

Both ⌥ (option/alt) + drag and ⌘ (cmd) + drag will create a copy of the object.

 ⌥ (option/alt) + drag will only work if the object is already selected and also disables temporarily the snapping while you're dragging the copy.

 

To avoid creating a duplicate when ⌘ (cmd) + clicking an object to force select it make sure you don't drag the mouse. The duplicate is probably because it's being dragged accidentally.

[misc33]

Ok, thanks. I think you're right that dragging is indeed the issue here, because I'm not used to cmd creating a copy.