Can't move objects after Pasting inside?

Question

Using CS5.5,
I made a series of shapes like the attached one, and then I select the outer square shape and I choose to edit>paste inside the shape. I then group all of the pieces making up the shapes and I want to move it to a lower portion of my document, though when I do this the image does not come along with the shape and text.
What am I doing wrong? How should I be doing this?
Thanks.

Answer 1

Remember: The Layers panel is your friend! The Paste Inside command creates a mask, which is a special type of group. To move your image independently from its mask—in other words, to reposition it within the square—go to the Layers panel and click on the Link symbol between the thumbnails to unlink the two components. Then click on the image thumbnail to select the image, go to the canvas and start moving the image around (using the Pointer tool). After that, you'll probably want to relink the image and the mask—again, using the Layers panel—so they can be moved around the canvas as a unit.
As I said, masks are just a special type of group. You can unmask an object at any time using the Modify > Ungroup command, which will restore the original components as separate, independent objects. You can then regroup those objects into a mask by selecting them and choosing Modify > Mask > Group as Mask. This is my preferred way to create a mask. It produces the same results as Paste Inside but doesn't require cutting an object beforehand; instead, you simply stack the objects, select them, and run the command, with the top object—e.g., the square—becoming the mask to the bottom object(s)—e.g., the image.
If you have other, non-masked elements involved—like your gradient block with text—and you want to move them all as a unit, you have several options. One option is include all the elements in a single layer and use the Layers panel to select all the elements in that layer—by clicking on the layer folder/name. Another option would be to simply drag-select all the elements on the canvas before moving them. And a third option would be to group all the elements by selecting them and choosing Modify > Group. This last option makes it easy to move all the elements together on the canvas but makes it more awkward to edit the elements individually (which might require ungrouping using Modify > Ungroup), so it's probably not the best for you.
Finally, since your gradient block with text appears to be contained within the square that you're using to mask the image, you could opt to include that gradient block as part of your mask group as well. To do this, you'd simply stack the image, the gradient block, the text, and then the square on top. Then select them all, and choose Modify > Mask > Group as Mask. The square would become the mask for all three of the selected objects beneath it.