Illustrator® CS4 For Dummies®

Chapter 13. Organizing Efficiently

In This Chapter

• Arranging and stacking images

• Using the Layers panel

• Changing the stacking order of objects with the Layers panel

• Naming objects, groups, and layers

• Organizing artwork with groups

• Letting Smart Guides do the work for you

• Working with guides

• Aligning objects

A good way to think about how Illustrator objects relate to one another is to consider Illustrator objects like construction paper cutouts. You can arrange them any way you want, but in all likelihood, some will overlap. Each piece of paper can then be tucked behind another piece or pulled out in front of another piece. Doing so results in totally different results, even though the paper cutouts never really change.

In this chapter, I focus primarily on stacking objects — tucking them behind each other or bringing them forward to upstage each other — and show you how to deal with stacking as easily as possible. In addition, a later section scrutinizes precision placement and aligning of objects.

Stacking Illustrator Artwork

Illustrator automatically accomplishes front-to-back positioning for you in a straightforward, logical way. Each new object that you draw, place, or paste is positioned in front of the last object that you drew, placed, or pasted, resulting in a stack of artwork.

Unless you apply transparency (as I detail in Chapter 10), objects positioned in front of other objects tend ...