Arrange multiple items at once in Illustrator

Question

I have a series of rectangles I'd like to line up one right behind another - in other words, I'd like to have one "in front" of one object, which needs to be "in front" on another object, etc. etc.

I'm essentially looking to distribute these in a "front / back" arrangement so when I apply a shadow effect to them I end up with a look similar to clapboarding on a house (shadow line at the bottom of each rectangle). I can do this easily enough if I click on each rectangle and select "send to back" (cmd+shift+[) or "bring to front" (cmd+shift+]) but I'm wondering if there's a way to select a group of them and have them essentially distributed along the z plane automatically (yes, I know it's a 2d drawing).

Has anyone run into a way of doing this?

Answer 1

You could use a blend, then expand. This will give you stacked objects.

In this case the blue is below the red in the stacking order.

After expanding and ungrouping, you have individual stacked object. Applying a shadow gives the shaker-style tiling I think you're referring to.

If you place the first object and last object in the correct locations, you should be able to get the blend to fill all the in-between steps without much manual alteration.

And, of course, once expanded and the shadow applied (with whatever method you use) you could make a pattern or symbol to easily repeat the same objects.

If you already have all the objects drawn, I don't think there's a method to stack them easily. It would most likely require scripting.

Answer 2

Another way to create them from scratch is to create copies with a Transform effect

I applied two drop shadows to get this:

You can use a clipping mask to hide the extra bits of drop shadow

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^{Wood texture courtesy of graphicdesignjunction.com}