Grouping and Ungrouping

The Group tool combines collections of objects into single units, and the Ungroup tool splits Groups back into the individual objects that make them up.

Normally, all objects are independent of one another, and can be manipulated individually. But it's sometimes helpful to treat a collection of things as a single unit, to make sure they keep their relative position and size when you're moving them around.

LightBurn also provides options to tell your laser to engrave Grouped objects together, or to cut and engrave multi-layer Groups in order, completing each layer in each Group before moving on to the next one.

Both Group and Ungroup are available in the Arrange Menu, Arrange Toolbar, and by hotkey.

Grouping and Ungrouping

Group

Ctrl/Cmd + G

Group selected objects to treat them as a single units when they are:

• Selected
• Moved
• Resized
• Used with the Boolean tools

You can create Groups out of any objects, including objects assigned to different layers, and multiple types of objects such as lines, shapes, text, and images. You can even combine objects that have already been Grouped into other Groups.

Ungroup

Ctrl/Cmd + U

Ungroup selected (previously Grouped) objects to treat them as discrete, independently adjustable units again.

If you have a Group made up of other Groups, you'll need to Ungroup multiple times to separate all objects into individal units again.

Selection Appearance of Grouped Objects

You can tell whether an object is Grouped based on its appearance when you select it.

Ungrouped objects are drawn with an animated dash pattern instead of solid lines, while Grouped objects are drawn with a dot-dot-dash pattern.

Ungrouped Objects Selected

Grouped Objects Selected

Auto-Grouping

Auto-Group identifies shapes that are fully contained within another shape and Groups them together with the outer shape.

In the animation above, the objects shown in red are unaffected by Auto-Group, either because they're not fully contained within the rectangle or because they are already Grouped. The green objects are automatically Grouped with the rectangle.

To use Auto-Group:

1. Select the shapes you want to use Auto-Group on.
2. Make sure the shapes are not Grouped using Arrange → Ungroup or Ctrl+U.
3. Use Arrange → Auto-Group to automatically group all fully contained shapes inside the outermost shape.

Troubleshooting

Note

Imported shapes are Grouped by default. Disable Group imported shapes in your Settings to turn off automatic Grouping upon importation.

• The following tools cannot be used with Grouped objects:

  • Edit Nodes
  • Trim Shapes
  • Resize Slots
  • Convert to Path
  • Auto-Join Selected Shapes
  • Close Path
  • Close Selected Paths with Tolerance
  • Break Apart
  • Optimize Selected Shapes
  • Select contained shapes

• Grouped objects are treated as single units when working with the Boolean tools. If any object in a Group is an open shape, the entire Group cannot be used with the Boolean tools.

• Using Select open shapes, Select open shapes set to Fill, and Select shapes smaller than selected will select applicable Grouped shapes, and remove them from their Group.

• Auto-Group only works on shapes that are fully contained within the outer shape. If any portion of a shape extends outside the outer shape, it will be left out of the Group.

• Auto-Group only works on Ungrouped shapes. Use Ungroup to remove shapes from an existing Group.

Related Topics

• Fill by Group
• Order by Group
• Selection Tools
• Numeric Edits Toolbar
• Align
• Docking
• Grid Array
• Boolean Tools

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For more help using LightBurn, please visit our forum to talk with LightBurn staff and users, or email support.

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