Page 33 - Adobe Illustrator CC 2020

Understanding Alignment Options

As you have already seen, there is almost always more than one way to accomplish a specific task .
Although Smart Guides make alignment very easy, the Align panel is useful for certain functions that
are not enabled by Smart Guides . You can use the Align panel to align multiple objects relative to one
another within a selection, to a specific object in the selection, or to the active artboard .

The Align Object options Align Left Edges The Distribute Objects Distribute Top Edges
are fairly self explanatory; when Align Horizontal Centers options enable you to con- Distribute Vertical Centers
multiple objects are selected, trol the positions of multiple
the objects align based on the Align Right Edges objects relative to each oth- Distribute Bottom Edges
edge(s) or center(s) you click . Align Top Edges er . By default, objects are Distribute Left Edges
Icons on the various buttons Align Vertical Centers equally distributed within Distribute Horizontal Centers
indicate the function of each . Align Bottom Edges the dimensions of the overall
selection . Distribute Right Edges
You can use the Align To menu to determine how selected The following images show the original placement, followed
objects will align . If you don’t see the Align by the result of applying the Distribute Vertical Centers and
To menu, open the panel Options menu and Distribute Horizontal Centers options to evenly space the
choose Show Options . three fish .

The Align To Selection option aligns selected objects to one
another based on the outermost edge of the entire selection .
In other words, aligning the top edges moves all objects to
the same Y position as the highest selected object .

If you use the Key Object option, you can click any object in
the selection to designate it as the key . (The key object shows
a heavier border than other objects in the selection .)
Because you can align objects relative to the document,
the align buttons are also available when only one object is
selected, allowing you to align any single object to a precise
location on the page or spread .

By default, Align options apply based on the outermost edge You can use the Distribute Spacing option to align objects to
of the active selection . In the following image, dashed lines one another by a specific amount based on the selected key
indicate the original top edges of the objects: object . To access the measurement field for these options,
you must first click one of the selected objects to define the
key . You can then type a value in the field, then click the
Horizontal or Vertical options (or both, as we did in the fol-
lowing image):

Using the Align To Key Object option, the middle image
was selected as the key . The Align options apply to the edges
of the defined key object:

If you don’t see the Distribute Spacing options, open the
panel Options menu and choose Show Options .

Project 1: Campground Icons 45