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Grouping and ungrouping elements in Google Slides

Whether you’re skilled in the tools of Google Slides or are just beginning, knowing how to group and ungroup elements within your slides can benefit you in a few ways.

If you know how to group google slides, you can make further edits, such as filling with color or adding a filter, to many aspects of your slide. You can make these various edits without having to do the same thing repeatedly to each element. This technique will reduce your time spent revising and modeling the design of your presentation.

Have you been looking for a way to make the group Google Slides project flow better? Do you need to get those presentations for work done in a cinch? Grouping elements, and ungrouping as required, is a skill to have.

Grouping your elements

First, before you start grouping your elements in your slides, you must understand two things: the only two elements you can group are images and shapes, and these elements grouped must be on the same slide. You cannot group a text box with a shape or image, and you’re also unable to group any elements existing on different slides.

  1. Select the elements you wish to group. You can do this step one of two ways:
    • Click and drag elements to select more than one
    • Click the individual elements as you hold the “shift” key
Select all elements in Google docs

2. Then you can do a group of these elements one of 3 ways:

  • Go up to “Arrange” in the toolbar at the top of your screen and click “Group.”
Use menu to group elements in Google slides
  • You can also click Ctrl-Alt-G (which explains beside the option “Group” under “Arrange”) for Windows or Cmd-Alt-G for Mac.
  • Or, for a quick two-click process, you can Right-Click the selected elements and then click the “Group” option. 
Mouse menu with group elements Google slides

Ungrouping your elements

Ungrouping an already grouped cluster of elements in Google Slides follows the same general guide as grouping them.

  1. You go to an already established group; you wish to ungroup and select it.
  2. There are four ways to ungroup the selected group:
    • Go up to “Arrange” at the top of the screen and go down to “Ungroup” towards the dropdown bar’s bottom. 
Use menu to ungroup elements in Google slides
  • You can also click Ctrl-Alt-Shift-G (which is also displayed beside the “Ungroup” option under the “Arrange” tool).
  • Another way to do this would be to right-click the grouped elements you wish to ungroup and select “Ungroup.”
Mouse menu with group elements Google slides

Tool in the belt

Easy enough Google Slides skill to mimic, right? Despite its simplistic nature, this skill can help your work assignments or Google Slides group projects get completed and look good when all is said and done, in far less time than it took you to change each element one at a time.  

Though a helpful resource, this tool is basic enough that once you know it, it’s easy to duplicate as many times as you need it. If you’re the forgetful type, you can always come back to this tutorial to refresh your memory.

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