Using Smart Guides


    Smart Guides are temporary "snap to" guides that help you create, align, edit, and transform objects relative to other objects. You can also use Smart Guides when rotating, scaling, and shearing objects.

    When Smart Guides are turned on and you move the cursor over your artwork, the cursor looks for objects, page boundaries, and intersections of construction guides to snap to. The direction, angle, tolerance, and appearance of Smart Guides are determined by settings in the preferences file.

    You can use Smart Guides in the following ways when you create, move, and transform objects:

    • When you create an object with the pen or shape tools, use the Smart Guides to position a new object's anchor points relative to an existing object.
    • When you move an object, use the Smart Guides to align your cursor to construction guides and existing paths. The alignment is based on the position of the cursor, not the edges of the object, so be sure to click to the exact point you want to align to.
    • When the Transform Tools option is selected in Smart Guides Preferences and you transform an object, Smart Guides automatically appear to assist the transformation.

    Note: When Snap to Grid is turned on, you cannot use Smart Guides (even if the menu command is selected).

To turn Smart Guides on or off:

    To turn Smart Guides on or off, choose View > Smart Guides. A check mark appears next to the command when Smart Guides are turned on.

To change Smart Guide preferences:

  1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Smart Guides & Slices (Windows) or Illustrator > Preferences > Smart Guides & Slices (Mac OS).
  2. Specify options for Smart Guides:
    • Text Label Hints to display information about the position the cursor is currently snapped to (such as center) as you manipulate the cursor.
    • Construction Guides to see guidelines in the file as you use Smart Guides.
    • Transform Tools to have Smart Guides help when you scale, rotate, and shear objects.
    • Object Highlighting to highlight the object below the pointer as you drag around it.
  3. Click a text box in the Angles section and set an angle at which you want guide lines drawn from the anchor points of a nearby object (the preview reflects your settings). You can set up to six angles. Do one of the following:
    • Type an angle in the selected Angles text box.
    • Choose a set of angles from the Angles pop-up menu.
    • Choose a set of angles from the pop-up menu and change one of the values in the text box to customize a set of angles.
  4. Type a value in the Snapping Tolerance text box to specify the number of points the pointer must be from another object for Smart Guides to take effect. Then click OK.