Characteristics of Selections - MapInfo_Pro - 2023

Selections are temporary tables. When you make a selection, MapInfo Pro creates this temporary table (called a selection) to store the records you have selected.

You can perform many of the tasks with a selection table that you can perform with a permanent (base) table such as:

• View it in a Browser, a Map (if it has graphic objects), or a Layout window.
• Cut and copy it into the clipboard and paste it into another table, or even into another application. (See Setting Your Clipboard to Copy Maps in to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.)
• Use it to edit a table. If you want to edit only certain records in a table, you can get those records into a selection and then edit that selection.
• Make a further selection from it.

To convert selections into permanent tables, on the HOME tab, in the File group, click Save Copy As. Once you have saved the temporary selection table as a permanent table, you can treat the new table like any other table. Selection tables are totally dependent on the table from which they were created. If you close a base table, all associated selection tables are deleted.

Selection Commands and Tool Descriptions

MapInfo Pro gives you a number of commands and tools for making selections. They fall into two categories:

• Selecting from the screen: Select, Radius Selection, Marquee Selection, Polygon Selection, Boundary Selection, Invert, and Clear commands. To select records, click or encircle the associated graphic objects. To select a layer on the map, right-click to display the context pop-up menu, and select Select All from Selection Layer.
• Selecting with queries: SQL Select, Select. When you select records with either of these methods, you create a logical expression that MapInfo Pro uses to select the records. For example, the expression SALES > 20000 means that MapInfo Pro will select only those records with sales higher than $20,000. We discuss Select and SQL Select in more detail in Using Select to Create Queries and Using SQL Select to Query Data).

To import a GML file:

1. On the HOME tab, in the File group, from the Open list, click Import to open the Import File dialog box. Choose OS MasterMap (*.GML) from the Files of type drop-down list and navigate to its location.
2. Select a GML file to import. Click Open to open the GML Import dialog box.