copying an object to its same location

[sam joyce]

Hi, I find all the time I am duplicating an object on top of itself to use as a cropping shape in which case the origonal shape is lost, thus the copy, I do this by either pressing alt and dragging the shape then re-aligning it, or drag and drop the shape in the layers pallet copy icon which can be a pain with lots of layers, both these ways seem long, is there an easier way of duplicating a shape on top of ityself?
I also find it very hard to select single points on an object ,after clicking on it all points become active then I have to shift click a point to de-select it then selecting it again selects the single point. Is there an easier of selecting a single point to edit Im missing?
Many thanks
sam

[PNeal]

Select your object, copy it (Ctrl + C)
Now, instead of just pasting it (Ctrl + V), paste in front (Ctrl + F)
Just don't deselect the original object before pasting.
You can also paste it behind the selected object (Ctrl + B)

Using the Direct Selection tool, click on the outer edge of your path, not inside. Clicking on the inside will select all the points. Clicking on the path itself will make the path active so you should see all the points, but they won't be selected. You can select an individual point from there.

[sam joyce]

These work well,thats much better- cheers