Microsoft Word has long struggled with complex layouts, especially when multiple objects, images, and text boxes collide on the page. The overlooked Drawing Canvas offers a cleaner, more predictable alternative to traditional layers and grouping, with precise control over positioning while avoiding many of Word’s most frustrating formatting quirks. Understanding how and when to use the Drawing Canvas to improve document stability, especially in professional and collaborative documents.
Word’s Drawing Canvas lets you group multiple shapes and images inside a container, with their own internal stacking or layer order.
Go to Insert | Shapes and way down the bottom is “New Drawing Canvas”
But the canvas itself is still just one object in the main document, so it’s not a real layer system, just nesting. Here’s a Canvas with a Shape, Cartoon People, Sticker and photo inside.
Use the Drawing Canvas to keep a group of objects together so they can be moved and managed as a single object.
Positioning in Word
This article is part of the Office Watch series on image positioning.
Make a Word table with picture background
Quicker and finer positioning or ‘nudge’ in PowerPoint
Layers in a Drawing Canvas
Layers (Bring Forward / Send Back) are available within a Drawing Canvas.
Here’s a picture with a Cartoon graphic in front and a Sticker partly behind (at right).
No Hide in a Drawing Canvas
There are show/hide buttons in the Selection Pane for each element in a Canvas but they DON’T WORK.
It’s not possible to hide an entire Drawing Canvas or individual parts inside a Canvas.
That’s a long-standing bug in Word.
Automatically add a Drawing Canvas
Most shapes and other Word objects are inserted without a surrounding Canvas because it’s not needed.
However you can tell Word to add a Drawing Canvas for all “AutoShapes” from File | Options | Advanced | Editing options | Automatically create drawing canvas when inserting AutoShapes.
There’s no equivalent setting in Word for Mac.
Fix image placement in Word: use this simple layout shortcut
