Arrange and Layer Objects in a Slide

Dan Wassink 0:02
In this video, we’re going to look at how we can arrange and layer our different objects in a slide in Keynote on the Mac. Let’s go to my Mac. Now in an earlier lesson, I did touch on these different layering options that we have with your different objects. I’m going to go into a little bit more detail, or we’re just going to focus exclusively on layering here. The first thing I want to do is I want to add a new blank slide. So we’re going to start fresh. So now what I do is I just go up to add slide here, and then we go on, click on Blank.

So we have our blank slide here, nothing on it. The next thing that I want to do is I want to add a few objects to it. So then we can layer it. Now when we add objects to it, such as text, tables, or even media such as photos. What it does is it layers them, the first thing that I add is going to be on the bottom, think of a deck of cards. So this is going to be the bottom object the bottom card, as I add items to my slide, what it’s going to do is layer them on top of that bottom card. So the more objects I have, the more layers I’m going to have. That’s basically how this works. Now, before I go and add an object, what I’m going to do is go up to View here. And what I like to do is show my object list.

When we do that, what we’re going to be able to do is see our layers, how many layers we have and where these objects are within that layer. So now I select this. And we have my object list, I do not have anything in here. So that’s why we do not see anything. So let’s go and add something, I’m just going to go and add a shape. Click on it, we’re just going to go with a square. And now we can see we have our first object there. Let’s go and add another object. This time, what we’re going to do is go with a circle, so I click on Shape. And let’s go with the circle here. As we can see, it is pushing that square down to the bottom, let’s go and add some text. When you add an object, what it does is it adds it to the center of your slide. So these are going to be layered on top of each other in the center of the slide. So now I’m going to go with text here. And we can see it added that text. Let’s go and add a photo, I go over to media here, we go over to photos.

And what we’re going to do is go with I have a nice little photo here, let’s go with this photo here, select it, and it added that photo. So now we can see we have four objects on my slide and they’re all layered on top of each other based on how I added them to the slide. Now what we can do is we can rearrange these, we can move these different objects around within our layers here. So how do we do that? Well, the easiest way of doing that is using this object list, you just drag them up and down. So right now we cannot see our text or circle our square because the photo is overtop of it. So it’s that big card that is over top of everything else. So now what I need to do is I need to either move my photo to the back, or move these objects to the front, well, it’d be easier to move the photo to the back as opposed to taking the three objects and moving them to the front.

So now all I do is just take this object here, the image and I drag it down, you’re gonna see we have a blue line there. When I do that, it moves it down to the bottom. And now we can see my objects. If I were to move my text down below my square, it would be above my image, but below my square, so we still can’t see it here because it is behind that square. So that’s the easiest way to move these around. But we can also go over to format here and under Format, we do have a range. When I select this, you’re going to see I can move it forward or backward. Basically what this does is this moves at one layer at a time, we also can move them to the top or bottom by going to back in front. So I have my text here. When I click on forward, what it’s going to do is move it one layer up, I click on it, we can see it as one layer up. I go back, it is one layer down. Now I’m going to move it to the top, I click on front. It is now at the top. So that’s another way of adjusting the layers just by using these options here. Now another thing that we can do is we can align them with our arrangement tool. So

what do I mean by align? Well, let’s go and make our image a little bit smaller here. So we’re dealing with some smaller items here and I’m just going to place them randomly around. And let’s go and change the color of this one here. So I go over to style. And let’s go with red. So now I have a different color there. So now I have these four objects here, what I want to do is align them, maybe even evenly distribute the space between them. I want to align them to the left. So let’s just start out with that. The first thing that we need to do is we need to select them all. So I have them all selected. And then we go over to align here. And you’re going to see that I can align it to the left, center, or right or top, middle or bottom. So we’re going to arrange it to the left, or align it to the left, I select left.

And now you can see that all of their left edges are lined up. What do you think’s going to happen when I say aligned to the right, it’s going to align their right edges. And then if we go to center, it’s going to align them in center, we can do the same thing with top and bottom, I’m going to move these around here a little bit again, and we select them all. And now if I go to align, what I’m able to do is align them by the bottom I’ve edges selected. And you can see they’re all aligned by the bottom edges, we can also evenly distribute the space. So right now let’s align these all to the bottom edges. So they’re all aligned to the bottom edges here. But if we look, you’re going to see we have a nice gap in between here, I want to evenly distribute these, so they’re evenly spaced apart, even though they’re different size objects. To do that, we select them again. And then you’re going to see distribute. And from here, what I’m able to do is distribute them horizontally, vertically or evenly. So I’m going to go with horizontally, I want to distribute the space evenly, horizontally, so I just select horizontally. And now we can see they’re evenly distributed. So that’s how we can align them as well as distribute the space. What other options do we have?

Well, what I can do, let’s go ahead and just select one of them here, I can also adjust the size. If you know exactly what size you want it to be, you could type that in here we have our width and our height, I can constrain the proportions. So right now, if I drag this up, it is not going to constrain the proportions, you’re going to see it’s turning it into an oval. But when I go and select this, I’m able to constrain the proportions. We can also set the exact position. So if you really want to get exactly where this is positioned on the slide, you can do that as well. And then we also have rotate, I can rotate them around. Let’s go with our image here. I just take this little slider here, and you’re going to see that it is rotating around. I can adjust the angle, I can also flip it, we can lock it once we have it where we want. So let’s say I have this image where I want it, I’m going to put it down here in the lower left hand corner, I no longer want to move this. Well, if I click here, I can accidentally move it. So what I need to do is I need to lock it. So now what I do is I click on lock.

And now you’re gonna see that there’s a little locks there. And that means that I can’t move it, all I can do is select it, it’s telling me that it is locked, but I can’t do anything with it. In order to do anything with it, what I need to do is I need to unlock it. And then we can also group our different items. So let’s go with our two shapes, arrow on a group these together. So basically what they are is grouped together as one shape, all I have to do is just click on Group. And now when I drag one, it drags the other, they are grouped together, it does not combine them into a single shape, though, it is still two separate shapes. If I go to ungroup, what it will do is it will ungroup them. Also, if we look at our layers here, our object list, you’re going to see that they’re both still there. And I can take one of these and move it around. When I’m looking at it in my object list. This is why I love the object list, I can go to the group to move the whole group around. Or what I can do is adjust them individually. If I do want to ungroup them, I can do that as well. I click on the group, and then we go over to on group.

Last, what we can do is we can combine these, I’m not going to spend a lot of detail on this. But basically what we’re able to do is combine these I’m going to place one over top of the other this is where you would use that. So I have these two objects here, one over top of the other.

From here, what we’re able to do as unite these as well as intersect them, and then I can also subtract and exclude them. So what it will do is it will subtract one shape from the other you’re basically building a new shape. So let’s go ahead and click on subtract And now we can see we made a new shape out of it, it’s subtracted that circle out of the square. I’m going to undo, if we go with intersect, it looks at the intersect, undo, if we go to unite, we can see unites them into one shape. So we do have different options here. And then of course, exclude will exclude what is in the middle. So those are layering and arranging options we have. Now we do have access to some of these tools through the contextual menu. As an example, let’s say I wanted to group these together here, I can Control click, and then what you’re going to see is group. I can also bring it to the front or send it to the back, I can align them distribute them. So we do have a lot of the same options.

Not every option, but we do have a lot of the same options through a contextual menu. So that’s how we arrange our different objects in Keynote. Basically, what we’re able to do is adjust how they are layered in our slide. Think of a deck of cards, you can adjust where that card or a specific card a specific object is, within all of those other cards. We can also align the edges of multiple objects. And what we can do is distribute the space between those different objects that we have selected. We can fine tune the position we can rotate them, we can lock them, we can group them, and then we can also combine different objects together. This is all found under Format and arrange and then you can also use contextual menus for a lot of these options. So those are our arrangement tools that we have available to us in Keynote on the Mac.