Adobe InDesign CS4 - Manual (Page 68)

60 USING INDESIGN CS4
Layout
Use smart guides
The Smart Guides feature makes it easy to snap objects to items in your layout. As you drag or create an object,
temporary guides appear, indicating that the object is aligned with an edge or center of the page or with another page
item.
By default, the Smart Guides feature is selected. You can turn off smart guides, or you can turn off any of the smart
guide categories:
Smart Object Alignment Smart object alignment allows for easy snapping to page item centers or edges. In addition to
snapping, smart guides dynamically draw to indicate which object is being snapped to.
Smart Dimensions Smart dimension feedback appears when you’re resizing, creating, or rotating page items. For
example, if you rotate one object on your page 24 degrees, a rotation icon appears as you rotate another object close to
24 degrees. This hint lets you snap the object to the same rotation angle of the adjacent object. Similarly, as you resize
an object next to another object, a line segment with arrows at each end lets you snap the object to the same width or
height as the adjacent object.
Smart Spacing Smart spacing lets you quickly arrange page items with the help of temporary guides that indicate when
the spacing between objects is even.
Smart Cursors Smart cursor feedback appears in a gray box as X and Y values when you’re moving or resizing object
or as a measurement when you’re rotating values. The Show Transformation Values option in Interface preferences
lets you turn smart cursors on and off.
For a video tutorial on using smart guides, see www.adobe.com/go/lrvid4029_id .
Turn smart guides on or off
❖ Choose View > Grids & Guides > Smart Guides.
Turn smart guide categories on or off
1 Open the Guides & Pasteboard preferences.
2 Indicate whether you want Align To Object Center, Align To Object Edge, Smart Dimensions, and Smart Spacing
turned on or off, and click OK.
To turn off smart cursors, which displays the X and Y values of objects you mouse over, deselect Show Transformation
Values in Interface preferences.
Change the appearance of smart guides
1 Open the Guides & Pasteboard section of the Preferences dialog box.
2 Choose a different color from the Smart Guides menu, and click OK.
Tips for using Smart Guides
• Smart Guides take effect only on page items and intersections that are in the current page view. If you have many
objects on a page and are trying to align an object to another object or objects in particular, zoom in on that area
specifically.If you don’t want Smart Guides to snap to column guides, turn off Snap To Guides temporarily by
choosing View > Grids & Guides > Snap To Guides.The Smart Guides feature is accurate regardless of zoom
percentage, so it isn’t necessary to zoom in to see if two objects are really aligned at their left edges, for example.
Updated 18 June 2009