How to Group and Ungroup Shapes and Objects in Microsoft Word

When you work with shapes and objects in Microsoft Word, one of the most convenient features is Grouping. By grouping these types of elements together, they become one. This makes moving, resizing, and formatting them easier.

How to Group Objects in Word

Maybe you’re making a flowchart or creating instructions using arrows in Word. You can group them to control them at the same time.

Select all of the shapes or objects that you want to group. You can do this by holding Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) and clicking each one. If you want to group all elements in your document, you can use Ctrl+A (Windows) or Command+A (Mac) to speed things up.

When you have the shapes or objects selected, you’ll see a border indicator for each. This is a good way to make sure that you have them all selected.

Go to the Layout tab and the Arrange section of the ribbon. Click “Group” and select “Group.” Alternatively, you can right-click, move your cursor to Grouping, and pick “Group.”

You’ll then see all of those shapes or objects within one border area. It’s now a single element.

Then, you can drag to move the group, resize it using one of the corners, add color to the elements, or perform whatever action you need.

In the screenshot below, we’re moving the group upward. You can see the outline of each element in the group, but they stay together.

How to Ungroup Objects in Word

Once you group your shapes or objects together, they don’t have to stay that way forever. You might only group them to execute a few actions and then want to work with them individually again.

Select the group and go back to the Layout tab. Click “Group” and select “Ungroup.”

Alternatively, you can right-click, move your cursor to Grouping, and pick “Ungroup.”

You’ll then see all elements in the group within their own borders like before you grouped them initially.

How to Regroup Objects

A super handy trick after you’ve grouped and then ungrouped your objects is that you can easily regroup them. The best part is that you don’t have to click each one.

Simply select one of the objects that was in the group and go to the Layout tab once more. Click “Group” and select “Regroup.”

Or, you can right-click, move to Grouping, and pick “Regroup.”

Like magic, Word remembers the shapes and objects that were in the group and regroups them for you!

For additional tips, check out our tutorial on working with shapes, pictures, and other graphics in Microsoft Word.