Word grouping pictures and objects

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You can group shapes, pictures, or other objects. Grouping lets you rotate, flip, move, or resize multiple shapes or objects as though they’re a single shape or object.

Group shapes, pictures, or other objects

  1. Press and hold CTRL and select shapes, pictures, or other objects to group.

    The Wrap Text option for each object must be other than In line with Text. For more info, see Wrap Text.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Go to Picture Format or Picture Tools FormatThe Group icon. Group > Group.

    • Go to Shape Format or Drawing Tools Format > Group > Group.

    Group button under Picture Format

    To still work with an individual item in the group, select the group, and then select the item.

    The Group button is enabled for two or more selected objects.

Group shapes, pictures, or objects

  1. Press and hold CTRL while you select the shapes, pictures, or objects that you want to group.

    The Wrap Text option for each object must be other than In line with Text. For more info, see Wrap Text.

  2. Go to Drawing Tools or Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Arrange group, select Group  Button image, and then select Group.

    Drawing tools Group Group buttons

    To work with an individual item in the group, select the group, and then select the item.

Group shapes, pictures, or other objects

  1. Press and hold command while selecting the shapes, pictures, or other objects to group.

    The Wrap Text option for each object must be other than In line with Text. For more info, see Wrap Text.

  2. Go to Shape Format or Picture Format, and then select Group  You might need to click Arrange to see Group on the Shape Format tab and on the Picture Format tab. > Group.

    If Group  You might need to click Arrange to see Group on the Shape Format tab and on the Picture Format tab. isn’t visible on the ribbon, select Arrange to display it.

To work with an individual item in the group, select the group, and then select the item.

If the Group button is unavailable, verify that you have more than one object selected.

See also

For more info selecting shapes or pictures, see Select a shape or other object in Word.

SVG icons must converted to shapes before grouping. For more info, see Convert an SVG image to an Office shape.

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  • Grouping Objects in Word
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  • Why is the Group button grayed out?
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  • Q&A

Do you want to move or resize multiple pictures, shapes, or other objects in your document at the same time? Grouping objects in Microsoft Word is an efficient way to manipulate them to act as a whole instead of individual pieces. You can group shapes, pictures, and other objects so that if you wish to relocate them but not change the distance between them, they will move as one. This wikiHow article teaches you step-by-step how to group and ungroup shapes, pictures, and other objects in Word on your PC or Mac.

Things You Should Know

  • Group items by selecting them and then going to «Layout > Group».
  • Make sure none of the objects have the «In Line with Text» wrap setting before creating a group.
  • If the Group option is grayed out, make sure you have more than one object selected & that none of the objects is a SVG, table, or worksheet.
  1. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 1

    1

    Open your document in Word. You can either double-click the file in your file manager (Finder for Mac and File Explorer for Windows) or you can click the Word app icon and go to File > Open.

  2. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 2

    2

    Make sure none of your objects are set to «In Line with Text.» If a picture or object you want to add to the group has its text wrapping set to «In Line with Text,» you won’t be able to select it while creating your group.[1]
    Here’s how to check and change the text wrap settings:

    • Click any object you want to add to the group.
    • Click the «Layout Options» icon that appears at the top-right corner.
    • If the «In Line with Text» option is selected, choose any of the other text wrapping options.
    • Repeat for all objects you want to group.

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  3. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 3

    3

    Select the objects you want to group. If you’re using Windows, press and hold Ctrl as you click each object. If you’re on a Mac, press and hold Cmd instead.

  4. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 4

    4

    Click the Shape Format or Picture Format tab. You’ll see one or both of these tabs at the top of Word, depending on which objects you’ve selected. The option to group objects appears on both of these tabs.

    • If you don’t see either of these tabs, click the Layout tab instead. You’ll also find the option to group here.
    • If you’re using Office 2010, click the Drawing Tools or Picture Tools tab, then click the Format tab.[2]
  5. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 5

    5

    Click Group on the toolbar. You’ll see this on the Arrange panel near the top-right corner of Word. If you don’t see this option, click Arrange to make it visible. A brief menu will expand.

  6. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 6

    6

    Click Group again to group the selected objects. The objects are now grouped together, which allows you to rotate,

    • To ungroup objects, click your group to select it, click the Layout tab, then select Ungroup.
    • Once you’ve grouped, then separated a group, you can regroup it. Go to Layout > Regroup.
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  1. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 7

    1

    You can’t include SVG icons in your groups. If there are SVG icons in your selection, you’ll first have to convert the SVG icons to shapes, which is a feature that only Windows 365 subscribers have access to. There will be a «Convert to Shape» button under Graphics Tools > Format.

  2. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 8

    2

    You only have one shape, picture, or object selected. Since you can’t create a group with only 1 item, you’ll need to add more items. Press and hold Ctrl (Windows) or Cmd (Mac) as you click to add other objects.

  3. Image titled Group Objects on Microsoft Word Step 9

    3

    Your selection includes a table or worksheet. Unfortunately, you cannot add these things to your group.

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Add New Question

  • Question

    How can I group text boxes in Word?

    Community Answer

    Click one after the other while holding Ctrl. Then do a right-click and press ‘Group’.

  • Question

    Microsoft Word wouldn’t allow me to group for some reason. Do you have any idea what I’m doing wrong?

    Community Answer

    Objects with «In Line» text wrapping and GIFs cannot be grouped. Since wrapping is difficult in a text box, it is best to move any items out of a text box, change the word wrap setting, and then group. You can then copy the group and paste it back into a text box and finish by deleting the group outside the box.

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Is this article up to date?

How to group a picture and a shape/text box in Microsoft Word 2013? I have discovered that I can’t group pictures as well. Does «Group» command concerned with grouping shapes only? Are there any workarounds to this problem?

Stevoisiak's user avatar

Stevoisiak

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asked Nov 29, 2014 at 18:22

mms911's user avatar

A solution (I don’t know if it is the best) is to use Powerpoint 2013. Add your picture, add your shapes, group them, then select the picture and Copy and Paste into your Word document.

You will have to change the anchor options to ‘in-line with text’, but the shape should move and scale with the picture.

The important part of this method is that you can still make edits to the shapes if necessary.

EDIT: Note that others below have found a way to do this within Word.

answered Apr 30, 2015 at 16:24

T James's user avatar

T JamesT James

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5

Solution for 2007 (which may work in 2013)

It is a real shame that pictures and textboxes/shapes can’t be grouped in more recent versions of word. I heard that if you add a textbox, click on properties, fill, and add the image as a fill picture of a textbox then one would be able to group with other textboxes, but I have not found this to be possible.

UNTIL I made sure that the textbox containing the image and the shapes and textboxes that I wanted to group it with had the same Text Wrapping setting (in front of text). Then I could group them, and change the text wrapping back to inline for the whole group. In earlier version of Word, the text wrapping was automatically unified to that of one or other grouped item but now this must be done manually in 2007. I hope that this works for 2013 too.

answered Dec 30, 2015 at 5:54

timtak's user avatar

timtaktimtak

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Change the «Layout Options» of the picture to any of the six options in «With Text Wrapping», such as «Top to Bottom». Then, shapes and picture can be selected altogether and «Group».

Here are the screenshots of changing layout options:

changing layout options

and grouping shapes and picture:

grouping shapes and picture

This solution was originally provided by timtak but screenshot wasn’t provided.

Franklin Yu's user avatar

Franklin Yu

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answered Mar 30, 2017 at 8:17

Yamin Momo's user avatar

Yamin MomoYamin Momo

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Do you want something REALLY easy? move to the page where all your Pics, and shapes are located, press «Windows logo key»+s, this will shoot OneNote screen capture.
Click and drag the pointer to select the area of the screen you want to capture (be sure to include all objects you want to group)
When you release the mouse button, the image will appear in your notes. It will also be copied to the Windows Clipboard so you can paste (CTRL+V) the screen clipping on another page in your word document or into any other program or document as an image.
Be sure Microsoft’s OneNote is running or this won’t work…

answered Mar 10, 2016 at 17:39

Checov's user avatar

You can try this: insert the image from the Insert tab (up top next to Home). Don’t drag the image into Word (you can but you won’t be able to group it with textbox/shape). Then edit wrap text to behind/in front. Control click on both image and shape/textbox and group.

ceztko's user avatar

ceztko

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answered Jan 14, 2017 at 1:33

guest's user avatar

guestguest

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  1. Save your word document as «97/2003 word document»
  2. Now you can select your shape and picture together then group them.

answered Mar 23, 2018 at 2:03

Jiyaxs's user avatar

1

If your .docx Word file is in compatibility mode you can’t group pictures with shapes. Turn off compatibility mode and then grouping pictures with shapes will work so long as one changes the word wrapping to something other then in line with text.

answered Oct 9, 2018 at 15:17

Frank's user avatar

I’ve organised some steps from other answers to make this easier to follow. This works in Word from Microsoft Office Standard 2016:

  1. Insert image
  2. Insert some shapes
  3. Change the image and text layout options to in front of text (thanks timtak)
  4. You may need to move the image back/forward and reposition the shapes. Ignore any document text that may be infront/behind
  5. Select the image and shapes using shift-click — you can now select them all together
  6. On the format menu, click Group
  7. Finally you may need to move or copy/paste your image to the correct location as it may have jumped elsewhere in the document during the process

answered Sep 17, 2019 at 4:18

thinkOfaNumber's user avatar

I found a way to create a new picture. This would not allow you to adjust afterward, because it makes a new picture, but it worked for my purposes.

Set up the picture and text box(es), shapes, whatever you want grouped together and press the «prt sc» button. Paste the screenshot into Word and right click on the screenshot to select crop. Crop the picture as needed and you have your object. When I did this, it came out smaller than the original, so I had to resize it, but I didn’t have any trouble with the resolution.

answered Jun 8, 2016 at 13:09

Christina's user avatar

I stumbled across something interesting…

Right click on the picture and select «Wrap Text». If it is set to «In Line with Text» you cannot group it with a text box. However, if you set it to «Tight», you can now Group Pictures and Text Box. Now you can reset the Grouped item to «In Line with Text» if you want.

Odd, very odd

answered Jan 12, 2017 at 16:43

Mark A.'s user avatar

I tried using the canvas under the Shapes tab. Copy and paste all your shapes and images that you want to group on the canvas, then group whilst on the canvas. After grouping Copy and paste off the canvas.
This may work?

answered Feb 13, 2017 at 20:59

Thiru Vandeyar's user avatar

1

I found that I can use a table for corralling graphics. I insert a one cell table and add all the graphics, text, etc. to this cell, and I can group or just leave them all individually positioned.

A couple of things you must do: format table for flow in the text; format the cell for vertical & horizontal center; change picture format to one that will stay within the table cell; create a style for the cell or modify the table cell so that the images have some sort of boundary (i.e. 4pt/2pt before and after paragraph spacing, center justify, etc.), if you adjust the table cell, you’ll still want a style with center justify and 0pt before and after spacing.

Once you have this «illustration table» setup you can save it to the building block organizer for future use! (Found at Insert tab>text>Quick Parts). I found this to be a handy method for creating safety notes: WARNING Watch out… where WARNING is a graphic, and the other cell is text.

Hope this helps!

answered Jan 22, 2018 at 18:16

Jim-ski's user avatar

It doesn’t work in Word 2013 but it does in Excel 2013. You also have to take into account that a right mouse click also (de)selects when holding CTRL. Then simply copy paste the pictures with shapes as one picture to word. Once in word you can ungroup the shapes from the picture and group them again.

answered Sep 14, 2020 at 11:24

Rene's user avatar

To Group shapes and or pictures together, find the Select tool in the Home tab. Click the drop down to Select Objects and use the tool to select them.

All your objects will show with a border around them.

Then go to the Page Layout tab and click Group. The borders around the individual objects you selected will change to one border around the group you’ve just made.

Select & Group screen shot

fixer1234's user avatar

fixer1234

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answered Jun 6, 2016 at 23:53

StanS's user avatar

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How to Group Pictures in Word

Over the decades, Microsoft Word has improved its features allowing you to input text and incorporate many kinds of objects into the documents. These objects, such as images and shapes, can be easily formatted, customized, and manipulated. So whether you are preparing reports, analyses, manuscripts, brochures or any other document, you can easily make it more attractive and informative at the same time with the help of these shapes and images.

Here we show you how you can group pictures and shapes in Word.

It can be very difficult to manipulate images and shapes, as well as other objects, if they are scattered throughout a page, or even throughout pages and pages of documents. Therefore, you need all the help you can get to make the most out of Word and come up with a great document.

This is why grouping is very helpful. With this feature available in Microsoft Word, you can work with multiple shapes or pictures as if they are a single entity. You can resize, move, or even rotate them all together with one move. This is very helpful if you have complex images or drawings that are incorporated into your document.

group objects to modify them at the same time

Group Images and Shapes in Word

What’s great about this grouping feature in Word is that you can still ungroup and regroup them whenever you need to. You can also work with individual objects in the group by selecting the group and clicking the single item you want to modify to select it. By grouping images, shapes, and other objects together, you can easily move or resize them. You can also copy and paste them all together, thereby saving you a lot of time and energy. Furthermore, you can add shape fills or other effects to the object and they will be applied to them.

Example of a kitty in a Word document. To group the images in Word, select the objects you want to modify or move.

To group images, shapes, and other objects together open a Word document. Choose the objects you need to move or modify. To do this, simply press and hold CTRL while you click each of the objects. Remember, the group function is only enabled when you select more than one object.

click group option under the Drawing Tools Format tab

Once you’ve selected the shapes, images, and other objects that you want, you can group them by doing any one of the following:

  • Drawing tools. Go to the Drawing Tools tab and under Format, click Group -> Group.
  • Picture tools. Under the Picture Tools, go to Format and there, click on Group -> Group.

Both the Drawing Tools and Picture Tools are contextual tabs, which means they only appear on the Ribbon when you select an object.

group objects using the group option under Picture Tools Format tab

Use Images and other Objects to Enhance your Word document

Using images, shapes, and other objects on your Word document can add a pop of color or a refreshing sight to an otherwise page of dull blocks of text. And, by grouping objects together in a Word document, you can easily manipulate them or move them around the document.

Just remember to use the Wrap Text option when handling object groups, because you have to set your text wrapping to anything except for In Line With Text, as this will reformat your page as well as the rest of your document. Furthermore, if you want to group icons together and they are in SVG format, you first have to convert them to shapes first. Then, you can work on each item in the group by selecting the group and then the item or object you want to manipulate or move.

To ungroup these objects, simply go to either the Drawing Tools or Picture Tools tabs, Click Group -> Ungroup.

How to Layer Objects in Word

  1. Select the object.
  2. Click the Format tab.
  3. If necessary, expand the Arrange group.
  4. Click the Bring Forward or Send Backward list arrow.
  5. Select a layering option.

Contents

  • 1 How do I overlap a group of pictures in Word?
  • 2 How do I put multiple pictures into one on Microsoft Word?
  • 3 How do you stack in Word?
  • 4 How can I layer pictures?
  • 5 What is the shortcut to group pictures in Word?
  • 6 Can you overlay pictures in Word?
  • 7 How do I insert a picture into another picture in Word?
  • 8 How do you combine images and text in Word?
  • 9 How do you repeat headers in Word?
  • 10 Are there layers in Word?
  • 11 How do you stack photos?
  • 12 How do you overlay pictures?
  • 13 How do you hang two pictures staggered?
  • 14 Why can’t i group a picture and a text box in Word?
  • 15 How do you group two pictures in Word on a Mac?
  • 16 What is CTRL G?
  • 17 How do I paste a picture onto another picture?
  • 18 Which new tab appears when you insert an image in a Word document?
  • 19 Why can’t I repeat header rows in Word?
  • 20 Why is repeat header row not working in Word?

How do I overlap a group of pictures in Word?

Group shapes, pictures, or objects

  1. Press and hold CTRL while you select the shapes, pictures, or objects that you want to group. The Wrap Text option for each object must be other than In line with Text.
  2. Go to Drawing Tools or Picture Tools, on the Format tab, in the Arrange group, select Group. , and then select Group.

How do I put multiple pictures into one on Microsoft Word?

Click once on the first image, press and hold down the “Ctrl” key and then click once on each other image. When they’re all selected, click the “Insert” button and the to-be-merged pictures open together on the page, but not yet merged.

How do you stack in Word?

Try it!

  1. Select what you’d like to move up or down in a stack. Note: Press Ctrl and hold to move multiple objects at once.
  2. Select Home > Arrange.
  3. Select one of the following options: Bring Forward: Moves your selected object one layer up. Send Backward: Moves your selected object one layer down.

How can I layer pictures?

With these layer apps you can change the background and achieve the effect of double exposure.
Moreover, you can add text to photos, use different effects and overlays with the help of these editors.

  1. Adobe Photoshop Mix – Our Choice.
  2. Pixlr.
  3. PhotoLayers.
  4. Multi-Layer Photo Editor.
  5. PicsArt.
  6. Canva.
  7. Snapseed.
  8. Aviary.

What is the shortcut to group pictures in Word?

To group objects:

  1. Hold the Shift (or Ctrl) key and click the objects you want to group.
  2. Click the Group command on the Format tab, then select Group.
  3. The selected objects will now be grouped.

Can you overlay pictures in Word?

Allow pictures to overlap
Select the Layout Options icon. Select See more. On the Position tab, in the Options group at the bottom, select the Allow overlap check box. Repeat for each picture for which you want to enable overlapping.

How do I insert a picture into another picture in Word?

How to overlay pictures in Word

  1. Go to the Insert tab.
  2. Select the Pictures option and choose an image source.
  3. Right-click on both pictures > Wrap Text > Square.
  4. Click on one image and drag it on top of another.

How do you combine images and text in Word?

Press and hold Ctrl while you click the shapes, pictures, or other objects to group. 2. Then right click and select Group. By doing this, we can group shapes, pictures, or other objects at the same time as though they were a single shape or object.

Repeat table header on subsequent pages

  1. In the table, right-click in the row that you want to repeat, and then click Table Properties.
  2. In the Table Properties dialog box, on the Row tab, select the Repeat as header row at the top of each page check box.
  3. Select OK.

Are there layers in Word?

A Word document consists of layers: The text layer that contains only text. A header/footer layer that can contain text. Watermarks, and foreground and background layers that contain graphics, text boxes, and shapes.

How do you stack photos?

Create an image stack

  1. Combine the separate images into one multi-layered image.
  2. Choose Select > All Layers.
  3. Choose Edit > Auto-Align Layers and select Auto as the alignment option.
  4. Choose Layer > Smart Objects > Convert to Smart Object.
  5. Choose Layer > Smart Objects > Stack Mode and select a stack mode from the submenu.

How do you overlay pictures?

How to Use Photoshop Overlays

  1. Step 1: Save and Unzip. Save the Overlay file to an easy-to-find location on your computer.
  2. Step 2: Open a Photo. Find a photo that you think needs a Photoshop Overlay effect.
  3. Step 3: Add the Photoshop Overlay.
  4. Step 4: Change Blending Mode.
  5. Step 5: Change the Color of the Overlay.

How do you hang two pictures staggered?

Hanging two pictures staggered? This is optimal with larger pieces. Try staggering them by hanging one lower than the other, so that top and bottom don’t match. Grouping larger and smaller pieces asymmetrically helps to create interest and energy.

Why can’t i group a picture and a text box in Word?

Right click on the picture and select “Wrap Text”. If it is set to “In Line with Text” you cannot group it with a text box. However, if you set it to “Tight”, you can now Group Pictures and Text Box. Now you can reset the Grouped item to “In Line with Text” if you want.

How do you group two pictures in Word on a Mac?

Group shapes, pictures, or other objects

  1. Press and hold command while you use the mouse or touchpad to select the shapes, pictures, or other objects that you want to group.
  2. Click the Shape Format tab or the Picture Format tab, and then click Group > Group.

What is CTRL G?

Updated: 12/31/2020 by Computer Hope. Alternatively known as Control+G and C-g, Ctrl+G is a keyboard shortcut often used to advance through Find results or move to a specific line in a document, spreadsheet, or text file. Tip. On Apple computers, this keyboard shortcut is performed using Command + G .

How do I paste a picture onto another picture?

Open the “Select” menu, choose “All,” open the “Edit” menu and select “Copy.” Open the destination image project, click the “Edit” menu and choose “Paste” to move the image. Photoshop will add the second image in a new layer instead of overwriting existing layer content.

Which new tab appears when you insert an image in a Word document?

Answer: Format tab appears when you insert an image in a word document.

It is possible to set all rows in the table to be header rows, but if you do, Word will choke and not repeat any rows on secondary pages. You can check this by selecting the entire table and then, on the Layout tab of the ribbon, clear the Repeat Header Rows tool.

Look for separate tables
If the tables present as one table but are actually separate tables then Word won’t repeat the headers because each separate table is expected to have its own header. The fix? Simply join the tables together and the Repeat Header Rows feature should work a treat.

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