This topic covers a very simple operation that you'll use every day. Selecting several objects and moving them around at once presents a few variables, such as the location of the selection's pivot, or whether the transform is local to each object, or based on the entire selection set. There's no setting that works in every single case. You have to flexibly jump back and forth depending on what you are trying to do.
A pivot is the point around which, or from which, an object transforms. There are three ways to reposition an object's pivot in 3ds Max. You can do so by moving it manually in XYZ, or by using the align tools, or by sticking the pivot on an object's surface. There's more than one way to align a pivot too, as the steps following the next paragraph will show.
3ds Max offers a tool called a Working Pivot . It lets you set, per transform, a temporary pivot of an object that you can reset later. It works in 3D space. The 3ds Max...