Hi this is Gary with MacMost Now.
On today's episode let's look at using Rulers and Guides in applications like Pages.
To show you how Rulers and Guides work let's use Pages.
Lots of apps use Rulers and Guides but Pages is a good one to use as an example.
We are going to create a page layout document, not a word processing document, in Pages and
then we get a blank document.
Now right away you will notice that rules are available here at the top and at the left.
If you don't see them this is where you can turn them on.
You've got Hide Ruler and Show Ruler right here.
So make sure that rulers are turned on.
Now that you have rulers you can of course use this as a guide to let you know where
the edges of the pages are and where you are on a page.
If I were to shrink down the document a little bit like that you can see there is the edge
of the page, it is 8 1/2 inches wide which is the standard page.
You can create guides, or alignment guides, by simply clicking in the ruler and dragging.
So on the left here I will click inside this ruler and I will drag to the right.
At the top I can click in the top there and drag down.
I can do this multiple times here to create a set of alignment guides.
If you want to move one that is already there you can hover over it and you can see that
the cursor changes and you can move it.
You see that you get a measurement there telling you exactly where you are going to drop this
alignment guide.
So you can align something precisely by slowly moving and dropping where you want.
So I will put it there 2", I'll put this one there precisely 5", and put this one up here
at 1", and put this one down here at 4".
I've got these precisely set to where I want.
So now I have some alignment guides what can I do with them.
Let me create a basic shape here, a box.
I can move this box around and notice that when I move it near a guide it will snap to
the center of it.
I can very easily drag it up and down and you can see it snapping like that.
I can have it snap that way as well.
If I've got ones that cross I can very easily snap it to the middle of this.
So it makes it very easy for me to say set up two boxes like this and set them so they
both are aligned this way.
That's what guides do.
Now if I drag and try to snap to the edges of it, you can see that it is not going to
quite work.
That's because if you go into Pages Preferences there is a section for Rulers.
There I can change whether it only snap to the center or also to the edges.
Once I turn on edges now you can see that the edges snap.
Which is handy because now I can actually move an edge of an object so it snaps to these
guides.
I can place it precisely.
If I wanted this one to match up for instance it is very easy to do and they align perfectly.
Now what happens if you have a bunch of guides and you don't want to use them.
Like for instance notice that the bottom here is going to snap to the guide here but I don't
want it to snap precisely.
Once I start dragging I can hold the Command key down and once I do that it will ignore
the guides and you can see I can place it precisely near the guide and if I lift my
finger off the Command key you can see it snaps.
In various situations it doesn't work if you hold the Command key down first.
For instance the Command key down first in this case will then change this to be rotation.
So it is important that I start dragging first and then hold the Command key down in order
to ignore the guide.
If you want to get rid of guides all you need to do is to drag over to the ruler again and
it gets rid of them.
It even makes it a little trash sound.
Now even if you have no guides you kind of have some invisible ones.
Like for instance the centering guide.
So right there at 4 1/4" you can see it snaps to that as well and I can do it down here
at the middle of the page and it will snap there at 5 1/2".
And things snap to each other.
For instance here I can align these two edges like that with kind of invisible guides.
I can align that edge there.
So it allows you align up objects with the edges of the page, with the center of the
page, and with other objects automatically in Pages.
Some other things you should be aware of are more Preferences in here for rulers.
For instance you can set the type of unit the ruler uses, whether or not to have 00
be at the upper left hand corner or to be at the center of the page.
You can use percentages rather than actual units.
Also in word processing documents you can use some rulers.
For instance you can enable vertical ruler in word processing documents.
In addition here you have the color for the ruler.
So if that blue isn't your thing you can then change the color and now you get something
else.
Now Pages uses Rulers and so does Keynote.
But other apps use it.
Particularly graphics apps like Photoshop and Pixelmator.
They have the basic functionality where you turn on the ruler so you can see them.
You can drag alignment guides from the left or from the top and drag them off by dragging
them up or to the left.
Learning to use alignment guides is an important part of creating complex layouts and graphics
documents.
So I encourage you to play around with them and get used to them before you need them.
Until next time this is Gary with
MacMost Now.