Vertically trim a series of shapes/labels

Question

I have a box with a list of labels inside of it and a separator line between each label. Now I want to cut all these shapes by a vertical line, say remove the left 50% part and keep the right 50% part with a "razor sharp" cutting edge. Pretty much the same as how you in Photoshop select an area of a rasterized layer, invert the selection and delete the outside of the selection. How do I achieve this with vectorized graphics in Illustrator? Expand and then select -> remove, rasterize -> select remove...? I can't get it to work.

EDIT : Illustration of what I'm trying to do.

Answer 1

Clipping mask.

Draw a rectangle which covers the section you want to keep.

Select the rectangle and the objects you wish to clip and then choose Object > Clipping Mask > Make from the menu.

This will mask the portion you do not want visible. This is similar to a layer mask in Photoshop as opposed to deleting raster bits in Photoshop.

The benefit of a clipping mask is that it doesn't remove or alter the underlying artwork. In this case, it will keep your text in tact so you can edit it further should you need to and a clipping mask won't change the length of the gradients (which would cause the need to reset the gradient fills).