Troubleshoot grouping in PowerPoint and Word

If the picture or texture is added to the slide background or is on a master (master: A slide view or page on which you define formatting for all slides or pages in your presentation. Each presentation has a master for each key component: slides, title slides, speaker's notes, and audience handouts.), it can't be selected in normal view.

• To change a picture or texture background, on the Format menu, click Background and then change the slide background.
• To select a picture on the slide master, change to master view: On the View menu, point to Master, and then click Slide Master.

There are four types of text you can add to a slide: placeholder (placeholders: Boxes with dotted or hatch-marked borders that are part of most slide layouts. These boxes hold title and body text or objects such as charts, tables, and pictures.) text; text in an AutoShape (AutoShapes: A group of ready-made shapes that includes basic shapes, such as rectangles and circles, plus a variety of lines and connectors, block arrows, flowchart symbols, stars and banners, and callouts.); text in a text box (text box: A movable, resizable container for text or graphics. Use text boxes to position several blocks of text on a page or to give text a different orientation from other text in the document.); and WordArt (WordArt: Text objects you create with ready-made effects to which you can apply additional formatting options.) text.

You cannot apply the Group command to a selection that contains a placeholder.

For details about working with placeholders and text boxes in PowerPoint, see About adding text to a slide.

When your selection includes a table, the Group command is unavailable. You can ungroup the table the table to turn the individual cells into shapes and then use the Group command.

In Word, you can work with drawing objects either on a drawing canvas (drawing canvas: An area on which you can draw multiple shapes. Because the shapes are contained within the drawing canvas, they can be moved and resized as a unit.), or as floating (floating object: A graphic or other object that is inserted in the drawing layer so that you can position it precisely on the page or in front of or behind text or other objects.) objects. You can apply the Group commands to objects that are all on the drawing canvas, or to objects that are all floating, but you cannot apply them to a mix of objects that are both on a drawing canvas and floating.

For details about working with the drawing canvas and floating objects in Word, see the following topics: About graphics in Word and Troubleshoot graphics in Word.

Under certain circumstances, the Group command is unavailable in Word. For example, you cannot apply the grouping commands to selections that include multiple inline (inline object: A graphic or other object that is positioned directly in the text of a Microsoft Word document at the insertion point.) objects, nor can you group text and inline objects, such as pictures and their captions.

For details about working with graphics and inline text in Word, see the following topics: About graphics in Word, Position graphics and text, Troubleshoot graphics in Word.