Snap to gridlines or snaplines

Snapping is useful for lining objects up to each other or to evenly-spaced lines on the artboard. When moving, resizing, or drawing an object, the boundaries of the object will pull or snap into position.

Snapping does not affect the behavior of the arrow keys when you are nudging an object.

To show the snap grid

The snap grid gives you a set of horizontal and vertical gridlines on the artboard.

Workspace showing the snap grid turned on

Do one of the following:

• In the lower-left corner of the artboard, click Show snap grid . To hide the snap grid, click the button again to see the off icon .

• On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, click Artboard, and then select the Show snap grid check box. Click OK.

To snap to gridlines

If Snapping to gridlines is turned on when you drag an object on the artboard, the object will snap or pull towards the closest horizontal and vertical gridlines.

Do one of the following:

• In the lower-left corner of the artboard, click Turn on snapping to gridlines . To turn off snapping to gridlines, click the button again to see the off icon .

• On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, make sure that Artboard is selected on the left, and then select the Snap to gridlines check box. Click OK.

To change gridline spacing

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

2. In the Options dialog box, click Artboard.

3. Set the Gridline spacing to the value that you want. The default is 8 pixels.

4. Click OK.

   Tip

   You may want to make the Default margin value half of the Default padding value, and the Gridline spacing value equal to one of the others. This ensures that margin and padding snaplines will occur along gridlines.

To snap to snaplines

If Snapping to snaplines is turned on when you drag an object on the artboard, the object will snap to the following targets:

Baselines (the base of text)
Alignment boundaries, which appear on the artboard as red dashed lines
Default margins
Default padding, or the padding properties that are set on the parent object
Column and row dividers in a grid panel

Do one of the following:

• In the lower-left corner of the artboard, click Turn on snapping to snaplines . To turn off snapping to snaplines, click the button again to see the off icon .

• On the Tools menu, click Options. In the Options dialog box, make sure that Artboard is selected on the left, and then select the Snap to snaplines check box. Click OK.

To set snapline margins and padding

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

2. In the Options dialog box, set the Default margin and Default padding properties to the values that you want. The defaults are 4 and 8 pixels, respectively.

3. Click OK.

   Tip

   You may want to make the Default margin value half of the Default padding value, and the Gridline spacing value equal to one of the others. This ensures that margin and padding snaplines will occur along gridlines.