Box Select lets you draw a box around part of your layout to select many shapes at once, instead of tapping each line one by one. Tap Select in the right-hand toolbar of the Dusty App, then drag across the canvas to choose what the FieldPrinter prints next.

When to Use Box Select

Use Box Select when you want to:

• Select a group of lines, points, or shapes in one action rather than tapping them individually.
• Print one area of the slab at a time.
• Print a single trade's layout or a single layer without picking up nearby geometry.

Before You Start

• Tap Layouts in the top-left corner of the Dusty App and open your layout in the Printing Layout view. 
• Tap Setup in the left sidebar and work through the setup steps until the FieldPrinter is stationed and ready to print the area you want to select. Each completed step shows a green check.

The screenshot below shows where each tool used in this article sits on the main screen.

How Box Select Works

To use Box Select, tap the Select button (the dotted square in the right-hand toolbar), then draw a box by dragging your finger across the canvas. Box Select picks up every shape the box captures in one action. By default it selects across all layers, so geometry from other trades or layers inside the box gets selected too.

The direction you draw the box changes what gets selected:

• Left to right: only objects that fall completely inside the box are selected.
• Right to left: any object the box touches is selected, even if it is only partly inside.

To select only one layer or trade at a time, restrict the selection to a single layer first (see the next section).

Select Shapes Within a Single Layer

If you only want to print one layer or one trade's geometry:

1. Open the Layer panel

Tap Layers in the left sidebar of the Printing Layout view to open the Layer panel.

2. Select the layer you want to print

Selecting a layer in the Layer panel restricts selection to that layer. Background objects from other layers are grayed out and cannot be selected. If you want a layer to stay visible without printing, see Setting a Layer to Reference Visibility on the Tablet.

3. Draw the box around the area you want

Tap Select and drag across the area. Only shapes on the selected layer are selectable, and geometry on other layers is ignored, so you can print one object type or one trade's layout at a time. To print different layers in different ink colors, see How to Print Specific Layers or Linework Using Different Ink Colors.

Add Your Selection to the Print Queue

Once your shapes are selected, add them to the print queue:

• Long-tap anywhere on the layout canvas to open the context menu, then choose Add to Print Queue, or
• Tap the Add to Print Queue button in the Settings panel.

Then tap Print at the top of the right-hand toolbar to start printing. You can follow progress in Job Report in the left sidebar.

You can add new shapes to the print queue even while the robot is actively printing. For more on how print queues work, see July 2025 Release Notes: Operator Print Quality with Print Queues.