Pictures, text boxes, and shapes are all considered objects in Word.
Sometimes you need a little help arranging these objects to get your document to look
the way you want.
Take these four text boxes for example.
Right now, they're all placed kind of randomly on the page, but I'd rather have them lined
up in a row.
Of course, I could try to line them up manually—or I could get Word to do it for me.
The first thing you'll need to do is select the objects you want to align.
To select them all at once, just hold Shift on your keyboard while you click.
Now we can navigate to the Format tab... and click the Align command.
You'll have several different options to choose from, ranging from vertical to horizontal
alignment.
You can also choose whether to align the objects to the page, to the margin, or to each other
(which is the default setting).
This time, I'm going to go with Align Right... and now the objects are aligned to each other
along the right edge.
There's another thing I'd like to change that can be done just as easily.
Notice how the shapes are lined up, but they're not quite evenly spaced?
To fix that, go to the Align command again... then choose Distribute Vertically.
Perfect!
Now that I have these objects arranged the way I want, I'm going to group them, so they
always stay together.
Just make sure you have each of your objects selected, then click the Group command...
and choose Group.
Now we have a single grouped object that we can move or resize any way we want.
See how it works?
Let's take a look at a few more techniques.
I've gone ahead and added the picture I want to use as part of my background.
I've also changed the text wrapping setting to In Front of Text to make it easier to move
the picture around the page.
The problem is that it's overlapping the rest of the objects in the document, to the point
where we can't even see them.
This can happen any time you have multiple objects, depending on the order they're in.
To change the order of an object, make sure it's selected, then go to the Format tab.
You have two commands to choose from: Bring Forward, or Send Backward, depending on what
you need.
If I click Send Backward... the image moves back only one level—basically behind the
business name; the text boxes on the right are still obscured.
If we click the drop-down arrow instead... we can choose Send to Back... and that takes
care of it.
The last thing I'd like to do is rotate or "flip" the picture, so it appears in reverse.
To do this, click the Rotate command... then choose Flip Horizontal.
Now we can see the bubbles that were hidden behind the text boxes on the right.
At this point, everything is perfectly aligned, and arranged in the right order, so I'm happy
with my document.
Practice using these tools on your own, and you'll be able to work with objects in all
kinds of situations.