Organising a document with layers in Layout by Zaweba

Layers in Layout by Zaweba are a way of sorting what's on your pages into separate sheets stacked on top of each other. Pictures on one, text on another, notes for the printer on a third. They don't change how the page looks unless you want them to, but they make a busy document much easier to work on.

What the Layers panel offers

The Layers panel holds as many layers as you need. Each has a name and a colour, and can be set visible or hidden, printable or not, and locked or unlocked. Guides can be locked per layer. Objects can be moved between layers, layers can be merged, paste can remember layers, and each layer has a sub-items list showing what's on it.

Give each layer a colour that's easy to tell apart from the others, and a name that says what's on it, so the panel reads like a table of contents for the page.

Useful ways to split a document

A simple and very common arrangement is pictures at the bottom, text above. Lock the picture layer while editing text, and you can click and type freely without dragging a photo by accident.

A layer for notes and instructions, set to not print, lets you leave comments on the page for a colleague or yourself that never reach the PDF.

Versions can live on layers too. A leaflet printed in two languages can have the shared design on one layer and each language's text on its own layer. Hide one, show the other, export, then swap. Each version uses exactly the same pictures and layout.

A layer for guides and grid elements, or for a background, keeps those out of the way of everyday clicking.

Sub-items, moving and merging

The sub-items list shows each object on a layer. On a crowded page that's the easiest way to find a small frame hidden under others, or to select something you can't easily click.

Moving objects between layers is how you tidy up after the fact. If text ended up on the picture layer, move it to the text layer.

Paste remembering layers means pasted objects go back to the layers they came from, rather than all landing on the current one. That keeps a structure intact when copying between pages or documents.

Merging layers combines them when the separation is no longer useful, for example when a job is finished and the working layers can be simplified before handover.

Layer mistakes that confuse colleagues

Hiding a layer and forgetting it's hidden is the classic. Something seems to be missing from the page, and it's on a hidden layer. Check the panel when anything looks wrong.

Setting a layer to not print and then putting real content on it is the more serious one, because it won't appear in the output.

Too many layers can be as unhelpful as none. Three to five well named layers are enough for most documents.

Locking a layer and then wondering why you can't select anything is a daily occurrence for most people; the lock in the panel is the first thing to check.

Layers are optional in Layout by Zaweba, but once a document has more than a few frames per page, a small set of clearly named layers repays the minute it takes to set them up.