i have 63 grouped objects - some of which include artistic text.  I have worked with CD for a while now and have never had this happen. what have i done??

Not exactly sure what you have............

If all you've got is mutliple groups within groups, UNGROUP ALL should do the trick.

On the other hand, if you have a control group of some sort, you'll need to Break Apart (Ctrl+K) the control group before you can actually Ungroup it. LOL LOL

Sounds a little like gibberish..........but nonetheless, true.

What does the Status Bar say?

Check what's down there frequently. It holds a wealth of information...........especially, in cases like this, where you find yourself lost in the depths somewhere........screaming to get out.

 Hi Diane,

Thanks for getting back so quickly.  I was excited to get back to work to try the control K.  (who would have thought i would be excited to get back to work).  Nonetheless, the status bar tells me i have a "control group of 63 objects on layer X".  i have other grouped objects on my page and they can be grouped and ungrouped at will? (the status bar for those groups says i have "Group of 8 objects on layer X" for these.  i am led to beleive it is this control group thing.  Problem is,  when i select the control group and go to "arrange", none of the group, ungroup, break apart, ungroup all, combine etc. options can be selected (they are whited out in the sense that they are not an option for a control group). truly frustrated and looking forward to a "man was i dumb and should have know that moment"

still screaming.....Graham

re

Graham,  it's funny that you should have this problem.

Last week someone sent me a file with the exact same issue. He had a bazillion groups within groups and another couple of sets of control groups.

As you said, the options for UnGroup and/or Ctrl+K (break apart) were greyed out.

After I hollered at him for getting himself into such a mess (Yikes!)...............I have no idea how he got to that point, the only thing that I could do was the following:

Please try it for me and let me know if it helps you, too.

[1] Select one of those Control Groups of ??? objects.

[2] Nudge it slightlly with one of the arrow keys on your keyboard.

[3] Does the Status Bar now change to a plain old Group? 

I don't know what kind of 'control' you used for your group. In his case, it was a contour group.

As soon as I nudged it a little,  the Ctrl+K option became available.

(If you nudge the Control group just one click, you can immediately nudge it back the same one click...........and you should still be fine. Your file will stay in tact and not be altered.)

Let me know.

I'm anxious to see if that will work for you as well.

 Hello,

Unfortunately the nuge did not work. 

I dont even know what a control group is and/or how to create one.  the help does not even know anything about it.  usually, if you know how you made it - you know how to undo it!!

One thing i just though of is that it at one time this was a Corel 9 file.  but i think this problem occured well after that.

Also,  there is one group within this group and it has five "child curves in it and a (large bit map)

Happy nodes

crap.

I was sure it would have worked. 

Okay, 2nd suggestion,  why don't you just post the .cdr file and let someone here look at it.

I'm sure one of us will be able to figure it out for you. Better than making yourself crazy.

 Would love to but file is big and i do not know how to post on these forums.!

One other thought... sounded (was skimming the post fast), that you don't have any editing capability on that layer. Go to the "Object Manager" docker and check to see if the "editing" icon for that layer is solid or ghosted out. You many have that layer locked for editing. 

You might have a drop shadow on the overall group, making it a control group.

delete or separate/break apart the shadow if it exists. Then try to ungroup.

Midnight Sun:

 i have 63 grouped objects - some of which include artistic text.  I have worked with CD for a while now and have never had this happen. what have i done??

Jeff brings up a good point.

Switch to Wireframe View and make sure that you are selecting the Drop Shadow Group not the Control Group first.

I'm still curious what you have in that file that makes it  so large.

 Got It---

First off i would like to thank everyone for your timely suggestions and help.  This was my first forum experience and it felt good to have experienced support.

What i had was a control group of 63 objects - within that group i had one other group with 6 objects.  the 6 objects included a large bitmap file of a shaded releif map of the entire Yukon and some random polygons. in the overall group there was one rectangle with a connector line.  In the small group, i was able to select the bitmap and i cut it.   once i did this - i was able to ungroup the entire large group. from what i can tell, the connector line or association had something to do with making the entire group a control group.  Thanks again.