Layer clipping

Clipping involves positioning one object inside another. The path of the parent object becomes the new boundaries for the child object. Any areas of the child object which lie outside the parent object's path are masked (hidden).

Clipping before
Clipping after
Blue caption strip clipped to a filled Picture frame.
Clipping in Layers panel
Layers panel showing blue rectangle being dragged within 'clipping' picture frame (above).

About clipping

When scaling a parent object, child (clipped) objects scale to maintain the correct aspect ratio. Scaling a clipped object has no effect on the parent object. A clipped object can be edited independently from its parent, e.g. adjusting color, opacity, and/or blend mode.

Any object can act as a parent or child in clipping relationships. Therefore both vector and pixel objects can be either clipped or clipping objects.

To clip objects:
  1. On the page, position the object to be clipped so it overlaps the object which will perform the clipping.
  2. In the Layers panel, drag the object to be clipped on top of the object which is to perform the clipping.

The clipped object is nested within the clipping object in the Layers panel. The clipped object has become a child of the clipping object.

Expand/Collapse To select clipped objects:
  1. In the Layers panel, expand the clipping object's contents (if needed) by clicking the layer's arrow.
  2. Click to select the clipped object.

The clipped object can now be moved and edited as needed.

To remove clipping from an object (unclip):

SEE ALSO: