Send to back

[Francisca Guzman]

Hello everyone!

I am working on a report and wanted to change the background color, so I created a rectangular shape. However, I'm having trouble sending it back and I can't see the grid and margins I established before.

Does anyone know how to solve this problem?

I really appreciate any help you can provide.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

If you are going to use a background element (a rectangle) to form a background color, it has to be at the very back of all page elements, especially all layers. It sounds as if maybe you have your rectangle grouped with something that remains behind it no matter how you change the stacking order within that 'group' of items.

The optimal way to do this is to create a new Layer and place the background object within it, then move that Layer (best named something like BG or Background to minimize confusion) to the very bottom of the stack in the Layers window. Once there, lock the layer so that you don't keep selecting or moving the background object.:

You can do this within a single Layer, as well, as long as the background object is free to be sent all the way to the back of all display objects, and once there, you can lock it individually to keep from moving or selecting it again.

[Francisca Guzman]

Thank you for the answer. I tried using layers to fix the problem but I still can't see the grids and margins I put when starting the project.

Is there anything I can do to fix it?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

You can turn off and on most of the various grids, guides, etc. with indivdiual commands. It sounds as if you may have switched into preview mode, which turns them all off.

Under View | Screen Mode, select Normal. That should restore all the guides etc. (You can toggle between Normal and Preview by pressing W with nothing [text] selected on the screen. Very useful.)

To put your background rectangle in a layer by itself, select it, and then drag the teeny indicator square from its layer to your background layer:

[Francisca Guzman]

I did what you recommended but I still can't see the grids and margins from the original layer.

I'll attach some images so you can get a better understanding of what's going on.

Thank you so much for your attention and help.

[Peter Spier]

There's a preference item checkbox for Grids in Back. Uncheck it.

[Francisca Guzman]

I unchecked it and it still doesn't work. I can't see the grid.

Thank you for the help.

[Barb Binder · Accepted solution]

Hi @Francisca Guzman:

Instead of Prefs > Grids > Grids in Back, uncheck Prefs > Guides and Pasteboard > Guides in Back.

~Barb

[Francisca Guzman]

Thank you so much! It finally worked.

[Barb Binder]

We are always happy to help, @Francisca Guzman.

~Barb