Pages: Rearranging Layered Objects

What we’re going to cover today is how to use Pages’ “Arrange” commands to adjust objects when they’re layered on top of one another. This comes in handy when you’d like to move text in front of a graphical element, say, or when you’ve got a few objects together and you want to overlap them in a specific order. So for our example, let’s check out my incredibly attractive layered shapes below.

I’m sure you’re thinking that I could have done a better job creating a graphic for this article, but you’re wrong. I appreciate the confidence you have in me, though.

Anyway, as you can tell, the red circle is behind the yellow pentagon but in front of the blue square. If I decide that I’d like the circle to be in front of both, it’s easy. All I’ve gotta do is first click on the circle to select it.

Then I’ll click on the “Format” icon in the upper-right of Pages’ window to open the pane if it’s not already (if it’s open, the icon will be highlighted in blue).

As in my screenshot above, the next step is to click on the “Arrange” tab, where the options for moving objects to the back and front appear. You can also choose to bring them backward or forward from their current location instead. This means that if I select my blue square and pick the “Forward” option, it would step in front of the red circle but would still be behind the yellow pentagon.

If you’d prefer, those same choices are available under Pages’ “Arrange” menu. That’s Apple—always providing us with a million ways to accomplish a task.

However I decide to go about about moving my red circle, once I choose “Front” or “Bring to Front,” it will obediently come forward.

Easy-peasy! So now, you can move objects or text boxes in relation to other items and arrange your elements exactly as you want them. And these commands are available in exactly the same places in both Numbers and Keynote, just so you know. I love it when stuff is simple, don’t you?