Layers, groups and artboards

The Layers and Objects panel

Open it from Layer ▸ Layers and Objects..., or click its tab in the right dock. Tabs in the dock collapse to icons, so the full name only appears on hover or in the ▾ All panels menu at the end of the tab strip.

Every row in the tree carries the same controls, left to right:

• A colour tag, which cycles through colours when you click it.
• A caret on groups and layers, to expand or collapse their contents.
• An eye, to show or hide. Alt+click hides everything else instead.
• A thumbnail glyph and the name. Double-click the name to rename it in place.
• A target dot for appearance.
• A selection square on rows that contain the selection. Drag that square onto another row to move the selected art there, or Alt+drag to copy it.
• A lock. Alt+click locks everything else instead.

Double-clicking a row opens Layer Options, a small dialog with the name, the colour and the show and lock states in one place.

Locked and hidden objects are skipped by the Magic Wand. Locking a finished background is the quickest way to stop selecting it by accident.

The panel footer, where the real work happens

The first footer row gives you New layer, Group, Duplicate and Delete, then four z-order buttons: Raise to top, Raise, Lower and Lower to bottom. Those four move the selected objects through the stack. The same four commands sit in the Object menu.

The second row is the housekeeping set, and it is easy to miss:

• Merge folds the current layer into the one below it.
• Flatten collapses every layer into one.
• Collect moves the current selection onto a new layer.
• Release takes every object in the current layer and gives each one its own layer.
• Locate scrolls the tree to the selected object's row and flashes it.

Groups are ordinary Object ▸ Group and Object ▸ Ungroup. A group appears in the tree as a row with a caret you can open. Layers are the coarse division; groups are the fine one. Most documents want a handful of layers and a lot of groups, not the reverse.

The Layer menu carries the rest: Add Layer, Rename Layer, Show/Hide Current Layer, Lock/Unlock Current Layer, Switch to Layer Above or Below, Move Selection to Layer Above or Below, layer reordering, and Duplicate or Delete Current Layer.

Artboards are crop frames, not containers

This is the single idea to hold on to. Rayzia has one infinite canvas. An artboard is a named rectangle that says this region is one page. It does not own the objects inside it. Move an object off an artboard and nothing breaks; it is still in the document, it is simply outside that page. A board's record is its name, position, size, bleed, preset, centre mark and cross hairs.

Press Shift+O for the Artboard tool, which has its own rail button. Then:

1. Drag on empty canvas Draws a new artboard.
2. Drag inside a board Moves it. Alt+drag duplicates it instead. With Move Artwork with Artboard switched on, the artwork rides along.
3. Drag a corner or edge handle Resizes the board.
4. Click a board Makes it the active one.

The tool's option bar carries a Preset dropdown (A4, Letter, IG Post, IG Story, YouTube, Full HD, Square), Portrait and Landscape buttons, the Move Artwork with Artboard toggle, and New, Duplicate, Delete, Fit, Options… and Export buttons. Creating, moving, resizing and deleting a board are all undoable.

The Artboards panel

The Artboards dock tab manages the whole set. Rows show the number, name, size and orientation. A single click activates a board, a double-click fits the view to it, and a double-click on the name renames it inline. The bottom bar has Move up, Move down, Duplicate, New and Delete, with Delete disabled while only one board exists.

The ☰ menu on the header holds the rest: New, Duplicate, Delete, Delete Empty Artboards, Convert Selection to Artboards, Artboard Options…, Rearrange All Artboards…, the Move Artwork with Artboard toggle, and Export Current or All Artboards.

Convert Selection to Artboards makes one board per selected object's bounding box, and consumes plain rectangles in the process, which matches Illustrator. Delete Empty Artboards counts a board as empty when no top-level object's bounding-box centre falls inside it, and it always keeps one board. Export writes one SVG per board, named after the board. That path is SVG only.

Exporting an artboard crops purely by setting the output viewBox to the board rectangle, so content keeps its world coordinates and anything off the board is clipped on render rather than removed.

Symbols

When the same object shows up over and over, promote it. Object ▸ Symbol ▸ Make Symbol turns the selection into a symbol definition, and the Symbols dock panel holds the library of definitions and their placed instances, including per-instance overrides. The same submenu offers Break Link to Symbol, Duplicate Instance, Reset Transformation and Redefine from Selection, which pushes a changed instance back into the definition so every other instance follows.

Keys worth knowing here

The keyboard hints printed beside menu items are decorative and several of them are wrong. Trust this table and the ones in the other lessons, not the menu labels. Clicking a menu item always works.

Common questions