How do I rotate a group of objects?

Turning one table is easy. Turning an arrangement — a buffet line, a lounge, a head table and its chairs — without pulling it apart is the part that used to mean typing degrees into a box. It is one drag.

Select it, grab the handle, turn it

1. Select. Drag a box around the objects, hold Shift and click each one, or click anything that belongs to a group.
2. Find the handle. With more than one thing selected, a dashed box goes round all of it, with one round handle above the top edge.
3. Drag the handle. The whole selection turns together, around the middle of that box. The angle shows above the handle while you drag.

It turns fifteen degrees at a time, so a quarter turn lands exactly square. Hold Option while you drag, or Alt on Windows, and it turns freely instead.

The arrangement turns as one rigid piece: every object keeps its distance from the others, and each one turns by the same angle, so chairs still face their table and a run of tables stays a straight run. One undo puts the whole turn back.

Make it a group if it always travels together

If the same objects always move together, select them and press Group on the right-hand panel, or right-click and choose Group. After that, clicking any one of them picks up all of them, with the handle ready, so you never have to box-select them again. Ungroup splits them back into separate objects.

A seating block behaves the same way: it turns as one piece and keeps its rows in formation.

When you need an exact angle

Dragging is for “turn it so it looks right”. When you need an exact angle, use the right-hand panel, which appears whenever two or more objects are selected:

1. ⟲ 90° and ⟳ 90° turn the selection a quarter turn either way.
2. The ±° box turns it by any angle you type, in degrees clockwise. Use a minus sign to go the other way, and press Enter.

The same quarter turns are on the right-click menu as Rotate 90° ⟳ and Rotate 90° ⟲.

A single object, and the keyboard

One object has a rotate handle of its own, which works the same way: fifteen degrees at a time, or freely with Option (Alt on Windows) held. The angle shows above the handle while you drag, with a reminder of the key.

With anything selected, R turns it fifteen degrees clockwise and Shift+R turns it back. Hold Option (Alt) as well to turn one degree at a time.

If anything in the selection is locked, the selection will not turn, and the group handle does not appear. That is what the lock is for: pin the stage or a traced wall, and nothing you do to the furniture around it can move it.

Once an arrangement is turned, the next job is usually lining it up with the rest of the room — align and space it exactly. And if you need the same arrangement in another plan, copy it across rather than building it again.