Select records in a table interactively

Within a table view, you can interactively select records by pointing at them, or you can select only records that meet some criteria; for example, use a tool or an expression to find all cities with a population greater than 1 million. Selecting interactively works for individual records, a consecutive range of records, or nonconsecutive records. You can click, click and drag, use keyboard shortcuts, or use the row header context menu to select interactively within the table.

  1. Open a table using one of these three methods:
    • Right-click a feature layer in the Contents pane and click Attribute Table Open Table.
    • Right-click a stand-alone table in the Contents pane and click Open Open Table.
    • Right-click the table in the Catalog pane and click Open Table Open Table to open a stand-alone table outside of a map or scene.
  2. Click the row header (the small gray square containing the row number) in the table adjacent to the record you want to select. To select consecutive records, click and drag.
  3. Press and hold Ctrl while clicking additional records.
  4. You can also select a range of records in a table view. Click the first record in the desired range and press and hold Shift key while clicking the last record in the range. You can also click a record to select it and drag up or down to select a range of records.
  5. The context menu for a row header also contains selection options. Right-click a row and click Select/Unselect Select/Unselect to add or remove an individual record from the selection set.

    The selection row count for the table is reported at the bottom of the table view next to the commands for navigating to the beginning or end of the table. If the table was opened from a map, this corresponds to the spatial feature count in the map labeled in the status bar. If the table is a stand-alone table, the selected row count is reported separately in the status bar of the map view next to the selected feature count. For example, you will see Selected Features: 12, followed by Rows: 2. If you have more than one stand-alone table containing a selection, the count listed for selected rows will be combined.

Work with selected records

The table toolbar contains a set of tools specific to working with selected records.

ToolDescription

Select By Attributes Select By Attributes

Select features by their attribute values.

Zoom To Selection Zoom To Selection

Center the map on the features in the selected rows.

This option is only available in tables that were opened from within a map or scene.

Switch Selection Switch Selection

Reverse the current selection set to deselect all selected features and select all the deselected ones. For example, if all records are selected, Switch Selection removes the selection. If no records are selected, Switch Selection selects all records.

Clear Selection Clear Selection

Unselect all currently selected rows.

Delete Selection Delete Selection

Delete all selected rows from the table.

Copy Selection Copy

Copy selected rows to the clipboard.

Selection sets also support highlighting records to identify specific features from an already defined subgroup. Both row and feature in the view are highlighted yellow. The table toolbar also contains a set of tools specific to working with highlighted records.

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