Guides, grid, and rulers
Alignment aids help you place objects precisely and keep print designs inside safe margins. Smart guides work automatically as you drag; the grid and print guides are toggled on when you need them.
Quick overview
- Drag an object and smart guides appear automatically, snapping it to other objects, their centers, and the canvas center.
- Hold Alt with an object selected to see pixel distances to the canvas edges, or to a hovered object.
- Toggle the pixel grid from the gear menu, the canvas right-click menu, or its keyboard shortcut, to overlay coordinate gridlines and edge rulers.
- Toggle print guides on a print part (a card or a CV) to show the bleed area and the safe zone.
- Use the alignment buttons in the properties panel for one-click precision instead of dragging.
Detailed reference
Smart guides
Smart guides are always active and need no toggle. As you drag an object, the editor compares its left edge, right edge, horizontal center, top edge, bottom edge, and vertical center against every other object on the part, plus the canvas edges and canvas center.
| Behavior | Description |
|---|---|
| Edge snap | A guide appears when an edge of the dragged object lines up with another object's edge |
| Center snap | A guide appears when horizontal or vertical centers match |
| Canvas snap | The canvas horizontal and vertical center lines are snap targets (the outer canvas edges are not) |
| Equal spacing | With three or more objects present, guides also appear when the gaps between objects become equal, so you can distribute by eye while dragging |
| Snap threshold | About 5 px: once a snap point is this close to a target, the object locks to exact alignment |
Guides are drawn as thin dashed lines and disappear as soon as no alignment is active or the drag ends.
Alt for measurements
Select an object and hold Alt to see the pixel distance from the object to each canvas edge, drawn as small pill labels. While you keep Alt held, move the pointer over another object and the readout switches to the gap between the two objects (or, if they overlap, the offset between their centers). Dragging is not required, the measurement appears as soon as Alt goes down on a selected object and clears when you release Alt. Use this when you need an exact gap rather than just alignment.
The alignment buttons
For alignment without dragging, use the buttons in the properties panel. With a single object selected, the six align buttons sit on the Properties toolbar and snap the object to the canvas. With several objects selected, the align buttons and the two distribute buttons move into the Layout tab and work on the objects relative to each other.
| Button | Requires | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Align left / center horizontally / align right | 1 or more selected | Horizontal alignment: to the canvas with one object, or to each other with several |
| Align top / center vertically / align bottom | 1 or more selected | Vertical alignment |
| Distribute horizontally | 3 or more selected | Even horizontal spacing |
| Distribute vertically | 3 or more selected | Even vertical spacing |
With multiple objects selected, alignment is relative to the outermost objects in the selection. The distribute buttons stay disabled until at least three objects are selected together.
Pixel grid and rulers
Toggling the grid also draws the rulers: numeric coordinate labels along the top and left edges. There is no separate ruler toggle, the two come together.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Minor gridlines | Every 25 px |
| Major gridlines | Every 100 px |
| Ruler labels | The pixel coordinate is printed at every major line (100, 200, 300, and so on) along the top and left edges |
| Appearance | Faint overlay lines, with major lines slightly more visible than minor ones |
| Layering | Drawn above the background but behind every object |
| In exports | Never included, it's a screen-only overlay |
The grid respects zoom: gridlines stay at their real pixel spacing in canvas space, so zooming in reveals more space between them. The grid is a visual reference only. Objects are not magnetically pulled to the gridlines, snapping is handled by smart guides against other objects and the canvas center, not by the grid. The grid starts off each time you open a design, so turn it on again when you need it.
You can toggle the grid three ways: the gear (settings) menu's Toggle Grid item, the canvas right-click menu's Toggle Grid item, or the keyboard shortcut below.
Print guides: bleed and safe zone
On a print part, open the gear menu and choose Toggle Print Guides to see two extra boundaries alongside the part's edges:
| Guide | Distance from the edge | Shown as | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bleed | 21 px | A red dashed line | The trim line. Extend backgrounds and edge-to-edge art past this line so small cutting variations don't leave a white edge. |
| Safe zone | 35 px | A green dashed line | The guaranteed-visible boundary. Keep text, logos, and anything that must not be cut inside this line. |
Center crosshairs mark the middle of the part, and each rectangle carries a small BLEED or SAFE ZONE label. Content between the bleed line and the safe line may survive cutting but isn't guaranteed, so treat the safe zone as the real edge for anything important. Bleed and safe-zone guides are screen-only overlays, never part of an export, and they recalculate automatically if the part's size or orientation changes.
Print guides only apply to print products, currently the card and the CV. If you try to turn them on for any other part type, the editor shows a brief notice that bleed guides are for print products only and the toggle stays off.
Step by step
Turn on the grid and lay out a tidy row
- Open the gear (settings) menu and choose Toggle Grid, or press the grid shortcut. Faint gridlines appear together with coordinate labels along the top and left edges.
- Use the labels to judge spacing: major lines fall every 100 px, minor lines every 25 px.
- Drag your objects into place. The grid is a visual reference, and while you drag, smart guides snap each object to its neighbours and to the canvas center for exact alignment.
- Turn the grid off again from the same menu when the layout is set. It never appears in an export either way.
Align a row of objects with smart guides
- Place three or more objects roughly in a line. No toggle is needed, smart guides are always on.
- Drag one object slowly toward the others. A dashed line snaps into view when its left edge, right edge, or center lines up with another object, and the object locks to that line within about 5 px.
- Keep dragging until two dashed lines appear over the outer neighbours: that is the equal-spacing guide, and the object drops into an evenly spaced gap.
- Release. The guides vanish as soon as the drag ends.
Set up print bleed before designing a card
- Confirm the part is a print product (a card or a CV). On any other part type the print-guide toggle will refuse to turn on.
- Open the gear menu and choose Toggle Print Guides. A red dashed rectangle (the bleed and trim line) and a green dashed rectangle (the safe zone) appear, with center crosshairs.
- Extend any background or edge-to-edge artwork out past the red line so a slight trim never leaves a white sliver.
- Keep text, logos, and anything that must not be cut inside the green line. Content between the two lines may or may not survive the cut.
Read the ruler and place an object precisely
- Toggle the grid on so the top and left ruler labels are visible.
- Note the coordinate you are aiming for from the labels, for example x 200, y 100.
- Select the object and hold Alt to confirm its live distances to the canvas edges.
- For an exact placement, open the Layout tab of the properties panel and type the X and Y values directly. See Move, resize, and transform.
Common tasks
- Even spacing without dragging: select three or more objects together, then use Distribute (horizontal or vertical) in the Layout tab.
- Center one object on the part: drag it until both the vertical and horizontal center guides appear, or select it and use center-align on the Properties toolbar.
- Check a single gap fast: select one object, hold Alt, and hover the other, the pill label reads the exact pixel gap.
- Design edge-to-edge art safely: turn on print guides and run backgrounds out to the red bleed line while keeping text inside the green safe line.
Keyboard shortcuts
| Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl/Cmd + ' | Toggle the pixel grid and rulers |
Alt (hold, object selected) | Show pixel distances to the canvas edges or a hovered object |
Print guides and smart guides have no keyboard shortcut. Print guides are toggled from the gear menu, and smart guides are always on.
Tips
Bleed and safe zone
Bleed is the extra margin that gets trimmed after printing. Anything that must not be cut, like text or a logo, should stay inside the safe zone.
Equal spacing shows up automatically
Once you have three or more objects roughly in a row, drag one of them and watch for the equal-spacing guides. They're the fastest way to eyeball an even layout without switching to Distribute.
Troubleshooting
- Smart guides won't snap. They are skipped while snapping is turned off. That switch lives in the infinite-canvas scene toolbar as a smart-snapping toggle (see Scenes and frames); on a normal part, guides are always on. Guides also do not appear while you are resizing an object, only while moving it.
- No guide shows with just one object. Smart guides need something to align to. With a single object on the part, the only target is the canvas center, so drag toward the middle or add another object to get edge and center guides.
- Snapping feels loose at very low zoom. The 5 px threshold is measured in canvas pixels, not screen pixels. At a very small zoom, 5 canvas pixels is a tiny on-screen distance, so a snap can feel hard to catch. Zoom in for finer control.
- Print guides won't turn on. They only apply to print products (a card or a CV). On any other part type the toggle shows a brief notice and stays off.
- The grid vanished after resizing the part. The grid, rulers, and print guides all rebuild when the part's dimensions or orientation change, but the grid must be on to redraw. Toggle it back on if it was off during the change.
- None of these overlays appear in a downloaded file. That is expected: the grid, rulers, smart guides, distance labels, and print guides are all screen-only and are excluded from every export.
Related
- Move, resize, and transform for align, distribute, and precise positioning
- Canvas basics for zoom, pan, and the rest of canvas navigation
- Artboard sizes for the print sizes that use bleed and safe zone
- Properties panel for the alignment buttons and the part background