Working with Layers

Quick reference

• 00:04 Keynote is amazing at working with objects, shapes, charts, lines, images,
• 00:09 audio files, video.
• 00:11 You name it, and
• 00:12 Keynote will help you to turn something ordinary into something extraordinary.
• 00:17 One thing you will find as you work with more and more objects,
• 00:19 however, is that they can sometimes be slightly confusing when it comes to which
• 00:23 objects appear to be on top of others.
• 00:26 In this lesson, we will be talking about layers, what they are, and
• 00:30 how we can use them to our advantage when building our slide decks.
• 00:33 First, let's talk about what layers are.
• 00:36 When we place a new object on a fresh canvas, it creates a layer.
• 00:40 Most people don't think of it as a layer, but as an object, and that's fine too.
• 00:45 If we add another object, we add a second layer.
• 00:48 If we add a third object, we add yet a third layer.
• 00:52 You get the idea.
• 00:55 It's hard to imagine how these layers relate to other layers
• 00:58 because Keynote is a two-dimensional design environment.
• 01:02 Let's take these three layers, move them around a little bit, and change some of
• 01:06 their colors to give you a better sense of their relative relationship to each other.
• 01:11 As you can see, the first layer appears to be in the background,
• 01:14 while the third layer appears to be in the foreground.
• 01:17 The order in which we add these objects to a slide is the order in which they appear
• 01:22 in layers relative to each other.
• 01:25 When I add yet another object, this new and
• 01:28 now fourth object will take the place of the foremost layer.
• 01:32 In some cases, it may be necessary to move layers forward or
• 01:35 backward one layer at a time.
• 01:38 Or even move an object to the very back or the very front.
• 01:43 Let's walk through how to do this.
• 01:45 In this example I will move layer two, AKA object two, forward one layer.
• 01:52 In other words, layer two and layer three will swap places.
• 01:56 To do this we first need to select object two.
• 02:01 Next, let's head over to the formatting pane and
• 02:04 click on the Arrange tab under the Format button.
• 02:07 At the very top of the formatting pane,
• 02:09 you will notice four buttons that we will use when working with layers,
• 02:13 Send to Back, Bring to Front, Send Backward, and Bring Forward.
• 02:19 While Send to Back and Bring to Front will move the selected object either to
• 02:22 the very back or bring to the very front, the Send Backward and
• 02:27 Bring Forward options will move the object forward or backward one layer at a time.
• 02:32 For this example, with object two highlighted,
• 02:35 we will choose the Bring Forward option.
• 02:38 As you can see, doing this will bring object two just in front of object three.
• 02:43 Object three will now assume the position of layer two,
• 02:46 sending it backward one layer.
• 02:49 If we want to bring object two to the very foreground, we click the front button.
• 02:54 If you we want to move it to the very background, we click the back button.
• 02:59 One more note to add to this, if we were to add yet another object or layer to this
• 03:04 slide, that object, regardless of how we changed layers prior to adding the new
• 03:09 object, would assume the position of layer five, or the foreground most layer.
• 03:14 Working with layers really is as simple as that, but
• 03:17 most people tend to get hung up on them because it's hard to envision three
• 03:20 dimensional space in a two dimensional world.
• 03:23 Now that you have a better understanding of how layers work and how to manage them,
• 03:27 you should have no problem in managing your own layers in your Keynote slide deck.

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