Rulers, Grids, and Snaps

Use the rulers and the grid to make constructing your visual even easier. Click on the Page tab and take a look at the Rulers & Grid group. Along the right side are some checkbox buttons: Show Rulers, Show Grid, and Use Snaps.

Rulers

Rulers help to align and measure items. To view the rulers, click the Show Rulers checkbox or click the Rulers button above the Work Area. While rulers are visible, you can click on one of them and drag the mouse to view a temporary dashed line called a guide.

Clicking and dragging at the corner where the two rulers intersect creates both horizontal and vertical guides at the same time.

Scale

You can adjust the scale of the rulers by clicking the Scale button and choosing from the menu - the Custom option allows for the most control.

The Grid

The grid is determined by the scale of the rulers. Clicking Show Grid causes a grid of dashed lines to appear on the Work Area to help align your items. Whether this grid is visible or not, the grid determines where items will "snap" to on the Work Area.

Snaps

If Use Snaps is checked, you can only place items along the intersection points on the grid - that is, they "snap" to the grid. This is a very useful feature because it makes aligning objects much easier and faster.

Turning off Use Snaps gives you the greatest control over your items.

You can control which part of an item snaps to the grid - left edge, center, or none - by clicking the Snaps menu button.

This selection applies to all items on the Work Area.