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Chapter 4 Creating and Manipulating Objects

6. Grouping and Ungrouping Objects


In the Modify menu there is a submenu under the last option, the more option. The first two options in this submenu are the group and ungroup options.

The group option puts all selected objects into a group, which, in effect, makes all the selected objects one object. This is useful when you want to perform a draw operation on the objects collectively and do not want to separate the objects. For example, if you have two objects that are aligned evenly and you need to move them, you can group them together and move them as a unit, rather than moving each one separately and then re-aligning them.

To group a set of objects:

1. Select all the objects you want to include in the group.

2. Choose the group option in the Modify menu.

Submenu

After objects are grouped, their appearance does not change: each one looks as if it is still selected separately, with the handles around its border. However, they can be selected simultaneously, indicating that the objects are now one unit. You can then perform any drawing area operation on them as a unit. If you move them, they will move together; if you cut them, all of them will be removed from the drawing area and placed on the clipboard; and so on. You can bring up the property sheets of all of them simultaneously by choosing modify from the Modify menu, but any changes you make to the property sheet of any object in a group, such as changing an object's position, will affect that object only.

To ungroup a group of objects:

1. Select the objects.

2. Choose ungroup from the Modify menu.

Again, there is no change in the appearance of the objects after the option has been invoked, yet if you deselect them and select one of them, only that particular object will be selected--the objects can no longer be selected as a unit, and you cannot perform any operations that will act on them as a unit.

You should be aware, though, that the align and distribute options will perform their operation on the objects within a group, but not on groups of objects. The align and distribute options operate only on two or more objects; the distribute option actually requires at least three. These options do not operate on groups of objects as if they were single objects. The align option, for instance, will not align two groups of objects; it will instead align the objects within each group. For example, let's say a display had two pairs of objects and you wanted to align each pair of objects. Grouping each pair of objects, selecting each group, and then choosing one of the align options doesn't work the way that you would expect--it aligns the two objects within each pair or group; it doesn't align the groups themselves. The following two sections discuss how to align and distribute objects.

To group a set of objects:
To ungroup a group of objects:

EDD/DM User's Manual, 2.4 - 27 MARCH 1997
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