Inverting the Selection

Inverting the selection means to select atoms if they are unselected and deselect atoms if they are selected. You can apply the inversion to the entire Workspace, or you can apply it to individual atoms that you designate by picking or dragging in the Workspace.

To invert the selection by picking or dragging:

• Hold down the Ctrl (Cmd) key while you pick or drag, to invert the selection for the picked atoms. When you release the key, the mode returns to the normal (replacement) mode. The inversion applies to all the atoms in the selection scope, so if you pick or drag over some selected atoms and some unselected atoms, the selection state is switched for all of them. This mode is a temporary mode controlled by the key.

To invert the selection for all atoms in the Workspace, you can:

• Click on the toolbar.
• Choose Select → Invert.
• Right-click on a selected atom and choose Invert Selection.
  

To deselect all selected atoms while selecting the atoms surrounding them out to a certain radius, you can use the Unselect Selected Atoms option of the Expand tool, as described in the Adding Atoms to the Selection topic.