Grouping objects through layers

[jillian_gogel]

So I have been playing around with InDesign's free trial (about to purchase the product for my company) for about a week now and all has been going without a hitch. EXCEPT for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to group smaller objects that may or may not be above other, bigger objects. For example, I'm editing an education book and I need to move the individual items of dotted lines (for writing), the traced practice letters, some color-coded dots to mark beginning and end points, etc. as one unit. However, all of these are within the boundaries of a larger text box that has been created for the full page. Therefore, every time I try to group the smaller objects, I keep catching the big box. I've tried playing around with moving the text box out of the way, etc., but it's too big to move completely off the page.

I was wondering if there was a basic special command function I could be using to just select those objects, or if there was a way to select objects for grouping one by one. I'm not so familiar with all the features InDesign offers, so I'm asking this as a novice.

Thanks very much! This is just very annoying...

[Barb Binder]

Many options. Here are two:

1. And easy one is to select the big overlapping object and use Object > Arrange > Send to Back or even just Object > Arrange > Lock. (Object > Unlock All on Spread when done.) With the big object in the back or locked, you can more easily select what you want.
2. A more subtle approach that doesn't disturb the stacking order is to use the Layers panel. Shift click the desired rows in the panel, and then drag them to a new location.

~Barb

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

On re-reading the question, it sounds like the big object is in the back already? Just lock it. Note that you can't change though, unless you unlock it.

~Barb

[SJRiegel]

You could select everything on the page, and then shift-click on the items you want to exclude to de-select them.

Alternately, you could open the layers pallet, and shift-click to select each of the items you do want. 

Also, within the layers pallet, you can create new layers to contain your groups. 

(as a side note, the lines for writing might be better achieved in a text box with paragraph rules)

[Barb Binder]

(as a side note, the lines for writing might be better achieved in a text box with paragraph rules)

Or a right-aligned tab with underlines as the leader.