How to Group and Ungroup Pictures in Microsoft Word

If you are designing a flyer or a complex diagram in Microsoft Word, you will often find yourself trying to arrange multiple pictures, shapes, and text boxes into a perfect layout. Once you finally get them aligned exactly the way you want, clicking and accidentally dragging one piece out of place can be incredibly frustrating.

To prevent this, and to make moving large designs much easier, you can lock multiple objects together using the Group feature. Once grouped, Word treats the collection of images as a single, solid object.

How to Group Pictures and Shapes

Before you can group objects, they must be formatted correctly. Word cannot group pictures if they are set to “In Line with Text” (the default setting). You must first change their text wrapping.

1. Click on your first picture.
2. Click the small Layout Options icon that appears in the top right corner of the picture (it looks like an upside-down ‘U’ over some lines).
3. Select Square or In Front of Text. Repeat this for every image you want to group.
4. Now, hold down the Ctrl key (on Windows) or the Command key (on Mac).
5. While holding the key, click on each picture or shape you want to group. You will see selection handles appear around every item you click.
6. Once all objects are selected, right-click on any one of them.
7. In the pop-up menu, hover over Group, and then select Group.

A single, large bounding box will instantly appear around the entire collection. You can now click anywhere inside that box to move all the images at once. If you drag the corner of the bounding box, all the images will resize proportionally together.

How to Edit a Single Image Within a Group

What if you have successfully grouped a logo and some text, but you realize you need to change the color of the text? You do not need to destroy the entire group to do this.

1. Click once on the group to select the entire object.
2. Click a second time directly on the specific item you want to edit.
3. You will notice a subtle, secondary selection box appear just around that one item.
4. You can now recolor, nudge, or edit that single item without breaking the master group.

How to Ungroup Pictures

If you decide you want to completely dismantle the layout and treat the images as separate objects again, you can easily ungroup them.

1. Click on the grouped object to select it.
2. Right-click on the group.
3. Hover over Group in the menu.
4. Select Ungroup.

The large bounding box will disappear, and the images will return to being completely independent elements on your page.