Question : Problem deleting bullet point in Adobe Illustrator

I have an Illustrator document that I need to make a few minor changes to, and am having a problem with it.  The version of Illustrator is 9.0, and I'm running it on Windows XP Pro.  Here's what I have...

I have what would appear to be a text block, that has 10 items in it.  To the left of each item is a square bullet point.  If I grab the block and move it, the bullet points don't move, so they don't seem to have any real association with the text items.  I can delete one of the lines, which I need to, in the block, but the bullets don't change.  If I put the cursor over one of the bullet blocks, I get a small blue text at the tip of my cursor that says 'x anchor'.  How do I manipulate these blocks?

As an aside, we also have InDesign; is this an alternative to Illustrator?  Should Illustrator 9 be upgraded to the current version, if we are going to have continuous small changes to documents, or are the differences such that a novice wouldn't care?

Thanks!

Answer : Problem deleting bullet point in Adobe Illustrator

InDesign is a page layout program. It is for taking artwork that has been created in programs like Illustrator and Photoshop along with text from word processor programs and combining them to layout multi page documents.

The bullet may be a shape, or it may be a dingbat text object. I made this sketch to show you which is which: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v474/JayPeeJR/illustrator_bullet.jpg

Illustrator is not a page layout program, but it has some very nice text handling abilities, so many artists use it to layout text when they don’t have anything too complex and it is only a page or less.

Getting bullets to line up nice and straight and getting text to line up nice and straight is very difficult (if not impossible) in illustrator. The work around is to set your text, and then place the bullets just where you want them, moving them individually into place.

Because you see the blue anchor, it seems that the object is not locked. You should be able to drag it around on the page, duplicate it, or delete it if need be. Try selecting it with the direct selection tool (the hollow arrow) and pressing the backspace or the delete key.

I think BongSoo is on the right track. A text object extends out a bit past the letters themselves. Very often, when a text block is stacked over another object, it can be difficult in illustrator to select the underlying object. You can hide the object like BongSoo says (select text then go to Object / Hide), or lock it so that it can't be selected (select text object then go to Object / Lock) or just drag it out of the way.