iWork/image sent to back not selectable

[Larry Watters]

I inserted two pictures on a page. I arranged them to overlap at the corners about 1 inch. The second picture was on top and I thought it would look better with the first picture on top so I selected the second picture and in the Arrange menu chose Send to Back. It looked great.

Later, I added some text and decided I needed to rearrange the pictures totally. The picture on top was selectable and I could move it around. The picture I had sent to the back was not selectable. I tried menu commands and clicking. I went so far as to revome everything else from the page and document and it still was not selectable. I tried the Edit menu Select All. Still no luck.

I finally started a new document and used the materials I had removed. I inserted new images and did not send anything to the back.

Any ideas? Is this a bug?

I've used send to the back in other programs and have not had this problem. Of course, if the item in back was covered by text or another object I could select and move the covering object and then select the background item. In this case, I could not find a way to select it.

[Peggy]

I inserted two pictures on a page. I arranged them to overlap at the corners about 1 inch. The second picture was on top and I thought it would look better with the first picture on top so I selected the second picture and in the Arrange menu chose Send to Back. It looked great.

Later, I added some text and decided I needed to rearrange the pictures totally. The picture on top was selectable and I could move it around. The picture I had sent to the back was not selectable. I tried menu commands and clicking. I went so far as to revome everything else from the page and document and it still was not selectable. I tried the Edit menu Select All. Still no luck.

I finally started a new document and used the materials I had removed. I inserted new images and did not send anything to the back.

Any ideas? Is this a bug?

I've used send to the back in other programs and have not had this problem. Of course, if the item in back was covered by text or another object I could select and move the covering object and then select the background item. In this case, I could not find a way to select it.

No, it's not a bug, it's just not very intuitive. You need to click outside the layout area then drag the cursor towards the object until the handles appear to select it. Then you can move it with the arrow keys or move it to the front to be able to move it with the cursor.

[Wildy71]

This is a terrible feature. Once you move the cursor into the layout area, it selects anything the mouse encounters first and then you have to shift-click to deselect any extra items that were selected. If you have a complicated layout, this is a real pain in the butt. I like the application, but they could sure make it more user friendly (e.g. forget all these inspectors; fonts, etc. way too much mouse action involved...ugh) I can't wait for the next version.