Working with Guidelines – Basic

Our first step is to create a new page which for this example is a 5 by 7 plaque.

The way to create a ruler is to click on the ruler and hold down the left mouse button. Drag your mouse out while still holding down the left mouse button. Get it in the general vicinity and let go of the mouse button.

Typically when I create a guideline I just drag it out and position it later. So when you drag out from the ruler with your mouse let go of the mouse somewhere on your desktop. Because we dragged out from the vertical ruler we have a vertical ruler. The ruler is red because it is selected. If you click on another object the ruler will deselect.

For this example I am going to create 4 guidelines so that they signify a plaque border. The border I want is 1 inch all the around the plaque. So enter in 1 inch (1) for the vertical location. Press enter and the guideline moves to the 1 inch mark.

As with the Vertical guideline to create a horizontal guideline click in the ruler and drag down. Drop the guideline some where close to where you want it.

Typically I will drop the guideline close to where I need it and than locate it exactly using the property bar.

As we did earlier type in 6 in the "Y" location box (1).

Create the right vertical guideline the same way as the previous 2. Enter in 4 for the "X" location

We need to create our final guideline which needs to be located at the 1 inch mark on the vertical. Drag a a guideline and in the "Y" location box type in 1 inch and press enter (1).

Our 4 guidelines are created. This is a 5 by 7 plaque with guidelines at each of the 4 one inch marks. Remember these guidelines do not print.

Instead of dragging all the guidelines one at a time we can create them all at once. Right Click on the ruler and select "Guideline Setup" (1).

If we go into the Options section we can create all our guidelines at once.Select Guidelines (1). Than Presets (2). Than "User Defined (3). Next select margins so we can creaet 4 margins (4). Becasue all the margins are the same we can mirror the Top and Left (5). Enter in 1 inch for the Top and Left (6, 7). Than select OK (8).

We have a created the four guidelines. This is a quick way of creating guidelines that are to be used as margins.

In this example we want to create margins that are located in different areas. First uncheck Mirror Margins (1). Than enter in your values for each of the four margins (1,2,3,4). Press OK or Apply Presets.

Here is our finished set of margin guidelines

Right click again on the ruler and select Guidelines Setup

We want to put a guideline at the 6 inch horizontal so type in 6 inches (1).Than Click on Add (2) to add in the guideline. Once you click add the guideline will show up on the workspace

To add in the guideline at 1 inch type in 1 (1) and click on Add (2). The guideline is added

Select the Vertical section under Guidelines (1)

Type in 1 (1) and than click on add (2)

Type in 4 (1). Than click on "Add" (2).

Here is the final output of the guidelines. You can see that I have created the guidelines in 3 different ways. The final technique is useful if you want to generate a number of guidelines that will typically be for non margin techniques. In my next article on guidelines we can look at some other options for using guidelines.

Click on the pick tool (1) and select the guideline by clicking on it. It is selected when it goes red.

The guidelines help me see if my logos or objects are lined up.

Go to EDIT | SELECT ALL | GUIDELINES (1).

You can rotate a guideline by clicking twice on the line. You can then grab the black arrows and while holding down the mouse you can drag the line to the position you want (1). Or if you know the position enter in the value (2).

To delete a guideline select the guideline and go to EDIT (1) | DELETE (2). Or just press the delete key.