Select subset of characters in many lines (column selection) in Eclipse/Android Studio

Question

How to select subset of characters in many lines (column selection) in Eclipse/Android Studio? Ideally without plugins. Shift+Alt+A seems not to be working for me either.

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Answer 1

To enter column selection mode, press alt-shift-insert.

To get the caret to occupy multiple lines, simply hold Shift and press the up or down arrow key. Then you can hold Shift and press the right or left key to select text horizontally like you usually would.

To exit column selection mode, press Esc.