Lessons

Lesson Info

Smart Guides and Alignment

I've got a lot of items on the page here and I drew no guides on. I've got some containers here that I'm gonna put some images in a swell, and I noticed that when I start to move these things around, weird things kind of happen. I get these weird, little, flashy green things and read things start to happen and all that, and it's a I just thought that was kind of weird, but I really haven't paid any attention to it. Well, those air smart guides and the smart guides are actually helping you tremendously. So in reality, I very rarely use guides to my rulers anymore because I'll set up the basic ones, and everything else is going to be related to what's already on the page. So smart guides. You go into your view menu and we see grids and guides. Here. Smart guides are turned on by default command. You so in design. Illustrator have the exact same smart guides features command U turns them on, turns him off there on by default. And whenever you go when you dragon object, it will always rela...

te to any other object on the page. So if you draw a single object there, nothing is gonna happen but any other object. Now, when I draw, it's gonna want to snap to certain sizes. And when I move, you're gonna start seeing all these little flashy things all over the place there. And this is in slow motion. Okay, so any green guides that you see are going to reference any other item on the page. We have the top, the center, the bottom, the left, the center and the right of every single object. So any time the top bottom left, right or center of my object line up with the top bottom left, right or center of any other object on the page, I will get that little green guide flashing there. Top bottom, left right, center top bottom left, right. There's a lot of items on the page. There doesn't seem to be that many. It gets frustrating sometimes, but if I want a line something up, I can drag this over and I can put that right there. It's now in line with the right hand side of my pedal. If I want a line it right up in the middle here, I drag it over and I snap it right there and that's right, snapped to the middle. If I want a line the right hand side up to the end of my headline, I drag it over there and all of a sudden snap right to it. It's there. So it's always gonna reference every single thing on the page, every single thing you could imagine if he had 60 items on this page, this thing would be flapping and snapping all over the place, and it can get to be really quite tedious. So what people do is they shut it off. So they go into their view menu and they say, No, I don't want this. I'm gonna turn this off right now. Now I can move everything around now nothing is going to line up until you physically draw guides on there. I understand it could be a bit much, but don't shut them off. Here's how you shut them off temporarily. As I'm moving things around, it's going to try to snap the locations based on the reference points of my object and every other reference point on every other object on the page. If I want to shut it off just for this move. I'm going to begin to move my object. And after I begin to move on, hold down my control key while the control key is held down. I have disabled the smart guides for that move and that move on. Lee. I have not turned them off. I've just disabled them. As long as I hold down my control key, they will stay off. If I let go of my control key, they come back on, even though I have never let go of the mouse. Then once I get it to the location, I can put it there and I can let go. So control disables Onley when I have the control key down. That's it. So the smart guides can be turned off temporarily, but they suggest not turning them off so you can get everything aligned. You'll also notice I will get some red guides every once in a while, and it's like, What's the deal? It's like too many green buns, and all the sudden I get a red light. Those red guides are actually locating the center of my page. There is my vertical center left to right, and if I come over here, you'll see that I'll get my vertical center from a horizontal center top to bottom. So if I want O put by circles right in the center, off my page right here, I can put those in and I can drag that and I can move them. And now you see the center of my objects line up exactly in the center of my page. Those red ones of those magenta guides always are going to divide everything centered regardless of the page size. Now I know that dead center of my page there and how much math that I have to dio zero. Because I just paid attention to my guides. If I want this to sit at the bottom so the bottom of it sits there in the center of my page, and this sits over there on the left. So now that's kind of nested up, and there's a center. There's the center, great, beautiful, but that's just the beginning. As I go through. I have this container right here, and I'm creating some type of mosaic, and I would like to draw another box this exact same size. I don't know what size this is. I don't want to duplicate it, but I want to draw one over here. So I take my container tool, and as I begin to draw, all of a sudden I'll get these little arrows that begin to snap next to my containers within heightened. It's like, What is that? As you begin to draw, it's now going to start to reference the width and the height of every other object on the page. And right now I'm drawing this and I get the green arrow on the right hand side of my container. And if you look at the top of my page where it says smart guides, it also has a green arrow next to it. The container that I'm drawing is now the exact same height as my text box. If I make a little bit bigger all of a sudden now, my welcome to in design has a little green arrow next to it a little bit more. Then all of a sudden, Oh, the container in the middle of my page now has that. Now I know it's the same size, and if I make it wider here, all of a sudden I get little arrow at the bottom, and that's like, Oh, that's the same with of my little circles go a little bit wider and now it's the same size. Is that a little bit taller now that I get a narrow on both sides of my original object and both sides the matching object I know those are identical size. I didn't have to draw them on top of each other. Duplicated. That's just what my smart guides told me, and it will snap to that size. Those are exactly the same size 1.78 by 0.831 point 78 by 780.83 Pretty close? Not exactly, probably because it's the stroke around them. But that's how we can make sure, and I can manage those particular sizes right there. Now if I want to align them, shuriken drag him over and they will line on the centers of their objects. They can align on the edge, however, that is in relation to him. As long as you see those green guides touching whatever it is, they're going to line up match, be on top of each other, whatever you want, But wait, there's more, because now I'm dealing with objects here where I really like to control spacing of my objects. So I got my one object here, and I've got my other object here and now I'd like to put a couple more objects here, but I really like the space in between here. So I'm gonna duplicate this object here by holding down my option. Kamut option. Click and drag. I drag it down and all of a sudden before I know it, the space between the first and the second object now matches the space between the second and the third object. And it's like, Okay, that's kind of ridiculous. It's like, seriously, Yeah. The key to this is you have to have at least two objects already. So many times I see people, they'll have one object, they'll draw another object. And they're like, Why am I not getting those little snap? Two things in between there showing me the distance. You have to establish the distance between two objects first, before you can then mirror that distance between 1/3 object. So to do that, I can just go ahead and I can option click and drag them that way as well. I can do them horizontally to so I can match the distance horizontally, even though the space between them is vertical. Great way to space, things out. Great way to make things line up, snapped everything and there isn't a guide on my page. Works really good now. I may also want to distribute these items on the page a certain distance. So if I have containers and I've got multiple containers here, this one's down here. This one's in the position that I want, and I want these two to be equal distant between these other ones. I can select all of my objects, and when I select all of my objects, I will be able to go into my align panel on my align panel is going to be up under the window menu under objects and layout, and there's my align panel. Now. My alignment would actually show up in my control bar in because of the resolution that were running. This ad makes everything fairly large. All of my aligned sections are going to be over here in my control bar, okay? And so I'm going to see all of my alignment features. You don't need to call a pure align panel. You'll have this. This is just a feature of what we have here. In fact, I'm gonna show it to you because I'm gonna show you one other trick right here. There's a couple things in the control bar that I don't normally use and the select next one down below and stuff like that. These little icons I don't use ever. I'm gonna show you the shortcuts for that. I mean, take those out of the control bar, just like I can edit the menu. I can edit my control bar. So I'm gonna go down to my cheese grater at the end of my control bar, and I'm going to customize this, going to make room so I can show you all of my align features. So I'm going to go under my object menu right here, and I'm gonna shut off my frame fitting, and I'm going to shut off my select container and content. A frame fitting is here. We're gonna get to that tomorrow with images and I'm shutting off by selecting container and content. I do that and there's all of my align features that were kind of hidden out there. You can customize this control bar anyway that you'd like, turn things on, turn things off that you don't use to clean it up. They almost never used the percentage or the select, which I just got rid of or the fitting. But I use those the fitting for the images. Okay, so now we have all of our alignment and we have all of our distribution, alignment and distribution. Two totally different things. If I have objects that are not quite lined up here, and I want to align things left, right, top bottom, I can select multiple objects and they've got my align here. And all of these first items are mile line A line left edge is centered, right edges top, middle bottom. If I want a line on my left edges here, I can go on a line. All the left edge is what one does it align? Teoh does that line to the one that's first that's last or sticking the furthest out. So if I go in and I align, it goes ahead and it lines everything left and it's like, hmm, that's interesting How did it know to do that? Because I didn't want to do that. Thank goodness for Command Z. I want to align it to the left of everything. Here. Why did it ally into my page? What's going on? Mm. Drop down menu right here. How do I want this to align dough? I wanted to align it to my selection to Mikey. Object, huh? Margins. What page spread? What's what's going on? Too many choices. Okay, If I want to align to my selection, this is my selection. And I click left and the lines to the one that's going to be the far just farthest left. When I had a line to the page here and I align it to the left, it will line it to the left hand side of my page. Okay, That's what I said. If I aligned to you like my left margin, it'll go over to buy. You got it? Left margin. Okay, right there. Yep. There's my margin. It was exactly what I tell it to dio crazy, is it not? Or I can align Teoh the key object key object. Hmm. Interesting. Mikey object. What did it too? I have four objects here. How does it know which one I'm going to align it to? I would like to align it to this one. So everything's lined up right to the edge of this. When I choose a line to key object, I have everything selected. And then do you see this nice, bold blue border there? That's my key object. I just have to go through and click once to tell which object it is that I'm going to align to. That is my key object. Now when I choose my align, everything's going toe lying Teoh Mikey object. And it does. By the way, this is an illustrator as well, and I'm sure people are like, Oh my gosh, I'm learning illustrator while I'm learning in design. Yes, yeah, That's why this course is really $399. So a lot of different ways that you can line objects here. It's not just taking them in, saying a line left right center top bottom. No, you can have very specific ways. Once you learn these ways, you'll find that there is a lot of really useful items that all come together very nicely, so that's the alignment features. Next we have the distribution features here, and I can go in and I can distribute so that all the top edges and the way I distribute the top edge is is that it's going to go ahead and is gonna put equal spacing between the top edges of every single one. I said my first object where I wanted to be my last objects. Basically my stops. And then I say, OK, equal space between the top or the middle. Since they're all the same size, it really doesn't matter. But if you had multiple size objects and you go ahead and put space between them, it's gonna make sure the space between the tops or the sides of the bottoms are all the same. So you're gonna have different spacing in between there because you're objects are gonna be different size. So if I do that, it's going to distribute everything right through there. So I have everything equally distributed right there. What happened is this. I don't have all of my functions and features right here in my distribute. That's why in the Align panel here I have my ability to distribute my objects here. But I can also tell it that spacing to use between them. So I have no spacing between them. And I distribute my objects equally before the top edges. And it distributes everything right there. And why is it putting it up to my margins right there? Because I have a line of my origins. Okay, selection. There we go. Now I'm gonna do that. Perfect. So this alignment comes into play when we dio all over the distribution as well. So this will allow me to put by first in my last and any sigh at any location and then align them between the first and the last right there. Now, you'll notice if I wanted to put this in a line. This so it's at the margins on my page. I can just say, you know what, align the margin to my page. Now they'll go the margins and distribute equally in between or write to my page edges if I want to. I don't have to set those to the page edges. I can also set a very specific amount of spacing in between those edges as well. So I'm gonna set this between my selection here and then say, OH, care. Want a specific amount of distance between 3/8 of an inch, so literally puts 3/8 of an inch between the top of each and everyone not between each object between the top edges between the vertical centers. So if my containers are two inches high or an inch high here, clearly I would have to go increase the spacing between there in order to do that, to take into account the height of my object and the spacing everyone in between. So if I want a certain amount of spacing in between, that is between the top edge to the top edge. If this is one inch, I'm going to need to have at least one inch plus the distance in between, cause it's gonna measure from here to here and in this case, because they're all the same size. It doesn't matter if its top middle or bottom, but there you have it, so it doesn't seem like you would really need to have a line or distribute. But then, once you realize Oh my gosh, I could have so totally used this last week. Yes, that's where you have that So even though smart guides are very dynamic and there truly useful toe have when you go in and you start to construct these things the align to distribute and being able to align to your selection your key object your margin, your page your spread not only applies to your alignment here, but keep in mind that it also applies to your distribute. Okay, so it's all part of one. So really, you'll need all of this up here, and you will need your line functions here as well. If you have objects that are different sizes. This is where the distribute spacing comes in. And gyms like all over this or we have Megan Star just asked, you know this exact question. Oh, thanks for you, Megan. Here it is, Megan. So everything I've showed you was equal size containers. So if I have equal space between equal size containers and it measures from the top, everything's going to be the same. But if I do this and I have containers that are different sizes, and I put equal spacing in between there and I say equal spacing between the tops when I go and distribute that so I have equal spacing. It's the same amount of space in between the tops of everyone. And it doesn't work because the objects are different. But the exact distance between here and here is the same as the distance between here and here, because that's what I told it. But if I used the distribute spacing here, I can specifically say you know what? I want this amount of space between every object, regardless of how big the object is. This is the space that I want between them measure from the bottom of one to the top of the other. And this is what I have. So if I use the spacing and say Okay, I want half on inch and I apply this whole thing, then it's gonna go ahead and give me 1/2 an inch of space in between. So the distribute spacing is for objects that are not the same size distribute objects is going to measure from the same location in between the same location. Yeah, little did you think these little graham crackers here, you know, with his little things, could be such an incredible asshole. But there's multiple ways that you need to go through and line up these objects with your documents. So you really have to know how to do this. Okay, now, of course, we can always go back to if you want to draw multiple containers or multiple circles here. This is what happens when you start to learn a lot. You're likely. Isn't there an easier way? Yeah, we showed you that easier way by going in and just using our basic tools by car square and going in and doing it. No, As you go through when you draw, you can use your up arrow down arrow to get that spacing in between. But what I didn't show you holding out on you? What? I didn't show you waas When we draw and use that grid if I in fact they're how we can actually affect the spacing in between those objects while we draw them. I know. Yes. So those four rectangles that I drawn there and spend all this time aligning and fiddling and fidgeting with and fussing and buffing and shaving and multiplying and, you know, spindle, fold mutilate. Here's how you do it. I'm gonna draw a rectangle a pero up arrow So I get four rectangles. I'm not done because I want more space in between now to adjust the space in between. Haven't let go of my mouse yet. Let go of my mouse! I'm done. Gotta start over now. I'm gonna hold down my command key, and I'm going to use my command up arrow. And that's gonna put more space in between my rows or columns. So of course, right. Arrow gives me more columns up and down. Arrow gives me more rose left era will take them away. Right Arrow, take them away. But command up or down era will increase or decrease the space between those objects as I'm drawing them. Okay. I know had explosion. It's amazing that will do this. The other amazing thing is, how do I actually member all this stuff when it's like when to use the right tool? Well, here it iss so we can do this with circles. We can do this with squares. We can do this with polygons here, and we can do it with lines to guess what you want multiple lines and you want to distribute everything use evenly. Whatever. Draw your line right there. course up Arrow will go ahead and duplicate your lines as well, you know? And then, of course, if you hold down your commands key, you can space out your lines. And this is really quite handed to become left handed. I can tell you that because if you're not left handed and you try to use your up and down arrow, then you're like doing this, Okay? So become left handed. And life in the computer world with shortcuts will be far, much lose far better. So there it is. I can go in, and I can just pull all the way down. I can use my command key to increase or decrease that space course. Hold down my shift key here, Riggio. There's all my lines, right? Their course. I kind of tweak them all out. But there it is. It's all just the basic drawing tools. Okay? And keep in mind that you know, these rectangle frame tools are identical to everything that we've been drawing here. These air, Nothing special. I know. Sometimes people feel like we're leaving that out now. Not at all. This is closer. So we use that this may be a silly question. But I just want to make sure that the reference point on your object is not going to affect the way that Ah, when you're making a alignments, nothing to do with the reference point when you're dealing with alignment on alignment, you're actually dealing with the edges, centers, everything else that you specify here. Your reference point is going to be in reference to your position on the page your size and when you re size it. When you rotate or you skew scale, flip or rotate, then that's going to come into play. Everything else is now going to be in relation to those objects. Top bottom, left, right, center, middle and then it's going to be. Then take those in relation to the page, the object margin, not the reference point. And it's like Sure right, whatever that means. I'm following you. Groovy. Good. So lines, boxes, shapes. No matter what it is, you can draw them. You can duplicate them, you can take them. Use your smart guides. Smart guides will allow you to line up absolutely anything, anywhere on the page. Draw it, no matter what I mean. Fun stuff like if I'm gonna go in and I'm gonna draw a circle right here. I could go and I could draw a circle, and it can line right up there at the bottom of what it is that I'm doing. And it's like, Wow, and I can reduce that in size. And now I know that circle is going to fit, and I can run that right through there. And it's like, Wow, that'll fit perfectly right there because I was able to use my smart guides. Okay, that's great. Works wonders, doesn't it? Okay, there it is, folks. Same thing with text containers. Text containers are no different as well. If I want to go in and they want to draw text container a certain size, I can go in and it can snap to anything on the line right there. And I've got my grid structure set up very basically that way. What can I say? That's the awesome part. Alrighty. Let's see what else we have. We have a few more items here. This tool is our free transform tool right here. We don't use this very often because everything that we have showed you so far is all done with the control bar and we have the free transform tool. And I don't think I've actually looked unnerve this for like, the last six or seven years. It's like if you check the oil in the car and it's like, Oh, yeah, I think it was like three years seven years ago. So all the items that I told you right here, the free transform, which is basically going in and being able to rotate and move your items your rotate tool, which is exactly what we did here with our rotate or choose or rotate right there instead of reference point along with our scale tool. Which, of course, we could just simply click on anything and hold dinner shift key and scale it. And then we also have our sheer tool, which is exactly what we did right here. So those tools are readily available. We use them a lot more illustrator than we ever use here, and I can seriously tell you I cannot remember how many years it's been since I've used these tools only because we have a point of reference understanding and our ability to go in and do the rotate in the scale on the sheer and all that other stuff right there. Couple of the things when we're dealing with a large amount of items on the page and our increments and our ability to do math. A lot of times when we'll be working on something, we will have to select a whole bunch of items on the page here, and we'll have to move them over and ensuring upper quarter of an inch or something like that. And I see people trying to nudge everything and set guides and everything like that. It's really easy just to use your Matthew can just select everything, and you can go into your X, which is your horizontal movement in your why, If you want to move things to the right, we're going to add numbers to our action. They're gonna move things to the right. If you subtract, it's gonna move everything to left. Whatever you have selected, you can just go in and simply say OK, minus 0.1 to 5. It's gonna move everything over that distance. If you want to move them up or down the page, you certainly can. If you want to move them over to the page and duplicate them. You certainly can. But when you have multiple object selected as well, these all act is one unit. So I conglomerate. We change the size of everything by like half an inch without selecting all the items separately. Nice features. Tohave. So what happens when you begin to stack items on top of each other? You certainly can. Um, so you have those four selected. Could you de select one of them? Absolutely. How? Maybe I missed that earlier. No, I didn't tell you. OK, so a lot of times that you'll have a lot of items on the page that you don't want. You don't have certain items that you want to have selected, so I'd like to select three out of these four. But it's easier than going in and selecting it. If you want to select each one separately, click on the 1st 1 shift click shift click on all the subsequent ones that you want. If we have multiple selected, you want to get rid of one shift. Click will also get rid of one out of the sequence. So with that, if I shift, click on that one. That one is no longer active, so shift click to add shift click to subtract. And then, of course, those are gonna act together. The ones that are selected and the one that isn't simply just gets left behind. But there's a lot of times I'll do this on the page. I'll actually go in and do a select all and get everything on the page. And then I can either shift, click or just shift drag over that, and when I shift, drag over them, shift drag will include them. Shift drag will also include them. That's how I do it. Just I got all these little things that I just do all the time. I have no idea where they came up. It's just these really fast moves to make. So yeah, easy ways to add to or subtract from whatever it is that you have selected so that everything can be affected in a very particular way.