Arrange & stacking order

Every object on a canvas has a place in the front-to-back pile. When two things overlap, the one in front hides the one behind it — and the Arrange commands let you decide which is which.

What stacking order is#

Think of your canvas as a stack of transparent sheets, one object per sheet. The object on top wins wherever it overlaps another; the one at the bottom shows only where nothing covers it. This is also called z-order. Arranging doesn't move an object across the canvas — it only changes how high or low it sits in that pile.

You'll reach for it constantly: pushing a full-bleed background rectangle behind everything, or lifting a price callout above the photo it labels.

The Arrange commands#

There are four moves. Two jump an object all the way to an end of the stack; two nudge it one step at a time.

The single-step moves (Bring forward / Send backward) are handy for fine-tuning a busy overlap; the front/back jumps are quickest when you know exactly where something belongs.

Where to find them#

You have three routes to the same four commands — use whichever fits your hands:

• The Object menu — open Object in the top menu bar and use its Arrange submenu.
• Right-click any object on the canvas and open the Arrange submenu.
• The keyboard shortcuts above, which work the moment an object is selected.

Doing it in the Layers panel#

The Layers panel is the visual companion to Arrange. Every object appears as a row, and the order of the rows is the stacking order: the top of the list is the front of the canvas, the bottom row sits behind everything.

Drag a row up or down to restack it — that's exactly the same as using the Arrange commands, just done by hand. Dragging is often faster when you can see all your objects at once and want to drop one precisely between two others. See The Layers panel for the full tour.

Order inside groups#

Stacking order is scoped. Arrange moves an object within its own group (or within the canvas, if it isn't grouped) — it won't leap an object out of one group and into another. So sending a shape "to back" sends it to the back of its group, not behind objects that live outside it.

To change how objects are nested — pulling one out of a group, or dropping it inside another — drag its row in the Layers tree instead. Arrange handles order; drag-and-drop handles nesting.

Tip: if Bring to front doesn't seem to do anything, the object is probably already at the front of its group. Check the Layers panel to confirm what scope you're really in.

Common uses#

A few patterns come up again and again:

• Backgrounds go to back. Draw a background rectangle, then Send to back so it never covers your content.
• Callouts come to front. A label, badge or price tag usually needs Bring to front to sit clearly above the artwork it points at.
• Group to lock a stack. Once a set of objects is stacked the way you want, select them and group (Cmd/Ctrl + G) so they move together and keep their internal order.

Where to go next#

Ordering is one half of a tidy layout — spacing is the other. Head to Align & distribute to line objects up cleanly, or brush up on the full set of keyboard shortcuts.