How can I color a mixed object in Illustrator?

Question

I have a mixed object (a group of either stroked or filled paths) in black and white, and I want all of the blacks to be blue. I know I can go into the group and select each black path and change it to blue, but there are a lot of paths, and I'm wondering if there is a quicker way to do it. In Photoshop, I could just create a coloured layer and change the blending mode, but this doesn't seem to work in Illustrator.

Answer 1

In your main menu, you got a menu item called "Selection". Just take the "similar" sub menu item - you need have one of the items selected - and choose which type of similarity the elements you want to select should share. You then have a complete selection of all element that are equal in one or another point.

I don't have an english version, so you should simply count the elements to find the menu item.

Answer 2

Two ways of doing this,

one,

put all the "blacks" in one group, then use the group selection tool and click on the one of the "blacks", you can then change the color to "blue"

second,

Use the magic wand tool and let the fill color box be checked, click on one of your "blacks" magic wand will select all objects with black fill.

To select objects with black stroke you can click on the flyout menu inside the magic wand panel and add more selection criterion like stroke color and stroke weight.

Once selected you should be able to change the blacks to blues.

Answer 3

I found out how to do it in an easier way. You can create a colour group, click on the group, click "recolor artwork", select a single color, and select the colour group with the colour in it. Worked well.