Adobe InDesign CC - Essential Training

How to group, ungroup & rotate images in Adobe InDesign.

Daniel Walter Scott

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Contents

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Introduction

How to group objects in Adobe InDesign:

  1. Select the objects you want to group, you can do this buy holding SHIFT while clicking the objects with the Select Tool
  2. Select 'Window'
  3. Select 'Group'
  4. Or on a Mac you can press 'Command' + 'G'
  5. On a PC press 'Control' + 'G'

How to ungroup objects in Adobe InDesign

  1. Select the grouped object with the Select Tool
  2. Go Select 'Window'
  3. Select 'Ungroup'

How to rotate images in Adobe InDesign

  1. Select the object you want to rotate using the Select Tool
  2. Hover your mouse cursor just out from the edge of the object. You should see the cursor change into a small bent arrow. Click hold and drag from this position.

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Hi there, in this video we're going to look at grouping this thing together and rotating it, and adding some text and making a perfect circle, well, all sorts of fun stuff. So let's go and make him in this video.

First up, we'll bring in the text, you can obviously just type it but I'm going to go to the example files. There's a folder in here called 'Discount Text', open that up, copy it. In InDesign, grab the 'Type' box, and click, hold, drag the box, then hit 'paste'. Remember, I'm doing it on the sides so that I don't end up messing up these things.

So what I want to do is, I'm going to use this 'slide bar', move it across a little bit. And what I want to do is, I'm going to 'select' all of this, I'm going to make it 'Paragraph'. Then I'll make it 'center'ed. I'm going to use the font that I'm using, I'm using 'Arial'. Of course, you can use anything. 'Arial Bold'. What size is it going to be? I've to double check. I've gone for '10 pt' at the moment. 'Black arrow'. So what we want to do is, draw our circle, and group them together. So drawing a circle, is click and hold down the 'rectangle' tool. Hold, hold, hold on that icon until you get to 'Ellipse'. And what I'm going to do is, I could click and drag out any odd size but if I hold down the 'Shift' key, on your keyboard, it's on the left and right, often. Hold it down, click, hold, and drag out. A circle, but while you're holding 'Shift', it makes the circle perfect. That is true of the 'rectangle' tool, it makes it a perfect square.

So how big does it need to be? First of all, we'll give it a color, and a stroke, then we'll go ahead and play with it. It needs to be our 'yellow'. So at the top here, I've got it selected. I've got my 'black arrow'. I got it selected, at the top here, I'm going to use-- down the bottom here it's the 'yellow'. 'Greenheart Yellow'. And in terms of the size, what I want it to be is, I've got it pretty close, actually I've got it bang on. Say you want to resize it, what's the shortcut? You remember, of course, you remember it's 'Command', 'Shift' on a Mac, and 'Control', 'Shift' on a PC. Grab any of these corners and you can click and drag it to an appropriate size. I'm going to get it about that size, that looks a bit good in the corner. I'm going to move it back off. Now I'm going to use this 'Type' here, stick it at the top. And we're going to run into our first problem, of arranging.

So whoever gets made the last is on top. Our circle was made after the text, so it's on top. What I'm going to do is, with my 'black arrow' I'm going to click off in the background, click on my circle. I'm going to right click this circle. If you're on a Mac, a MacBook Pro like me, you might have to use 'Control' and click it, make sure you use the right click. Let's use 'Arrange', and let's go to 'Send', either 'Backwards', or 'Back' will work. In our case we want 'Backwards'. If I send it to the back, it will work, goes behind it but watch what happens when I move it across here. It's back behind this image as well. So what I want to do is, I'm going to 'undo' it, right click it, and say I want to move it, 'Arrange'. I'm going to go 'Backward', which means it's going to go back one step. And it's going to go behind this one guy. You might have to go backward a couple of times to get the balance right. I'm going to grab this. Does it fit? Not really. So I'm going to grab this edge here. I'm going to get it so it's on four lines. I'm grabbing the edge here with my 'black arrow'. Does that fit? Kind of.

Now when you are moving things around, it can be a little hard because it's trying to snap. I've got my keys on my keyboard, just the arrow keys, the cursor keys, and I will just tappity tap till I get it right. And I'm going to drag this up. If I want to select these two, and align them I'm going to grab my 'black arrow'. I'm going to select both of these guys, and then up the top here, you'll often see it, if you can't see it, there's the tiny 'Arrange' panel here, there's an official panel though. If you can't see it, it is under 'Window', 'Object & Layout' and you can turn this panel on. And what it will let you do is, this one here, centered both, horizontally. If yours does what mine just did, it's probably not. It's aligning to the whole page, yours is generally, by default is 'Align to Selection. So I click these guys, click this vertical one as well if you want to try and align it that way. I'm going to bring you back out here. So what I'd like to do is - I want it down a little bit - I want to group them, so I've selected both of them by dragging a box behind both. And I'm going to go up to 'Object' and go to the one that says 'Group'.

All that means is that I can click off, and I click back on just one of them, and I've got them both selected. I can select it and go to 'Object', and 'Ungroup' it as well if I need them apart. What I want to do is rotate it. Remember, from an earlier video, I want you to grab your 'black arrow', and just outside, not here, just lift it up, we can rotate. Click, hold, and drag, and I'm going to move it down here somewhere. It's probably a bit too hard, the rotation. I’m looking for the cool, lean thing, like it's a sticker that I stuck on afterwards, but clearly it's not.

All right, that is how to group things, but we also learnt how to make perfect circles, and we rotated things again. Let's get on to the next video.