There are three ways to align the items on your screen. All of these options can be found under the Alignment drop-down.
Turn alignment tools on and off
Control Smart Guides from the Alignment drop-down menu in the top toolbar. From here you can turn the following guides on or off:
- Smart guides: Smart Guides appear as you adjust the size or position of elements on the design canvas, allowing you to align them relative to the other elements on the canvas and the total canvas space.
- Grid: The grid overlays your design canvas, allowing you to manually adjust the alignment of elements in your design according to the grid layout. The grid overlay is not visible on the final download or print version of your design.
- Margins: Margins act as a guide to help you maintain equal spacing from the edges of the page. They ensure that your text does not run too close to the page edge where it can risk getting cut off.
The Smart Guides appear when you drag, resize, or otherwise reposition design elements on the canvas. They are always on by default.
Use the Smart Guide in your design
Resize the elements in your design
As you resize an item, smart guide lines will appear to guide you. Use them to gauge the size of the element relative to other elements on the canvas.
Align elements relative to the canvas or other design elements
When you align three or more items on the design canvas, dragging one of them will bring up the smart guide lines.
Horizontal markers between the elements will appear as equal spacing lines when the elements are an equal distance apart.
The lines that appear vertically and horizontally and run from each end of the canvas show you where the center of the canvas is, and how to align design elements with the canvas height and width.
VENNGAGE MAKES IT EASY
If there are overlapping items, group
them first before clicking on using the Align
tool to rearrange them on the canvas.
Use the auto-align and distribution features
Instead of individually dragging objects into alignment using the smart guide, you can automatically redistribute elements on the design canvas using the "Align" and "Distribute" features in the Alignment menu.
Select the items you want to align, either by clicking and dragging a selection box around them, or holding down the SHIFT key and clicking the elements you want to select.
Open the Alignment drop-down and select an option under "Align or "Distribute".
Use the "Align" tools to shift selected elements to the described alignment.
- Left: Align to the left edge of selected items
- Center: Align to the central vertical axis of selected items
- Right: Align to the right edge of selected items
- Top: Align to the top edge of selected items
- Middle: Align to the horizontal axis of selected items
- Bottom: Align to the bottom edge of selected items
Use the "Distribute" tool to redistribute the spacing between selected elements.
- Vertically: Create even spacing between elements along a vertical plane
- Horizontally: Create even spacing between elements along a horizontal plane
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