Grouping and ungrouping objects

The Shadow and Transparency Tools offer different results depending on whether objects are grouped or not. For more information see "Transparency" and "Shadows".

You will often create complex shapes from several different objects. The "Arrange" > "Group" menu option (or right click selected objects and choose Group) lets you lock those objects together to form what appears as a single object. You can then select the grouped objects and copy, rescale, move or perform any other operation on the entire group.

To create a group

Select all the objects you want in the group.
Right click and choose Group or choose Group from the Arrange menu (or "Ctrl + G") to create the group.

Ungrouping objects

Select the group.
Right click and choose Ungroup or choose Ungroup from the Arrange menu (or "Ctrl + U").

After this, all the individual objects in the group remain selected.

To add more objects to a group

Select the group.
Ungroup ("Ctrl + U")
Select the extra objects.
Group again ("Ctrl + G")

You can also incorporate a group into a second group by omitting step 2. Xara remembers the original grouping information. If you ungroup the objects later, the original group remains.

Removing objects from a group

Ungroup the objects.
"Shift + click" on the objects you want to remove. This deselects them; the other objects remain selected.

You can then choose "Arrange" > "Group" to regroup the remaining objects.

Selecting a single object from within a group

This feature called Select inside, is useful for changing an object's color, for example. "Ctrl + click" on the object (you can also use this to select a "group within a group"). Pressing "Tab", or "Shift + Tab" moves the selection within the group, to the next, or previous object. Once you have selected an object inside a group, you can also use "Alt + click" to select the object under the selected one.