Adobe Acrobat 7 TIPS and TRICKS THE 100150 BEST [Electronic resources]

Donna L. Baker; Kristin Kalning; Becky Morgan; Judy Ziajka

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TIP 91: Using Grids and Guides for Assistance

If you have worked with image, illustration, or layout programs, you know about grids and guides. Acrobat 7 includes both these handy features, along with rulers to help you position content precisely, and to assist in measuring and examining drawings.

When Objects Misbehave

Whether the grid is displayed or not, the Snap to Grid feature can still be active. If you are moving content on your pageimages, text, form fields, drawingsand you can't seem to nudge it into position smoothly, click the View menu and see if the Snap to Grid option is checked. Uncheck the setting and you can nudge to your heart's content.

Grids are sets of vertical and horizontal lines that overlay a document. The lines of the grid, which use spacing that you specify, aren't printed.

Choose View > Grid to display the grid. If you want to be able to move an object and have it "snap" to the grid (align itself automatically with the grid lines), choose View > Snap to Grid (Figure 91a). As you drag an object you see it jump to align with the grid lines horizontally and vertically.

Figure 91a. Using the grid to snap content to precise locations on the document, you see a dotted line where the object will snap to when you release the mouse.

Guides are custom lines that you can add either vertically or horizontally to help with positioning. To use guides, turn on the rulers first by choosing View > Rulers. Click the horizontal ruler at the top of the Document pane with any tool and drag downward to place a horizontal guide; drag right from the vertical ruler at the left of the Document pane with any tool to place a vertical guide.

To reposition your guide, click the Select Object tool on the Advanced Editing toolbar and drag the guide line. When you drag, the Select Object tool switches to a cursor (shown in Figure 91b). Toggle the guides on and off using the View > Guides command. Use the Select Object tool and drag horizontal guides up to the ruler or drag vertical guides left to the ruler to remove them.

Figure 91b. Use any tool to drag a guide from the rulers; use the Select Object tool to reposition the guides.

Making the Grid Work for You

The grid is only as valuable as its settings. In many documents, setting the Offset preferences may be the most important setting. For example, if you have one-inch margins on a page and set the grid to .4 inches vertically, there is no grid line that lines up with your left margin, as the grid lines show at .4, .8, and 1.2 inches. If you instead set the Offset at 1 inch, the grid lines are offset by the amount you specify in the preferences, and a grid line is sure to line up with your margins.

Both grids and guides can be customized in the Preferences dialog. Choose Edit > Preferences or Acrobat > Preferences and choose the Units and Guides option in the list at the left of the dialog to display the customization settings (Figure 91c).

Figure 91c. Customize grid and guide lines according to the document you are working with.

Click the Units pull-down menu and choose an option other than the default inches if required. Select options for grid spacing, color, and position of the grid. Use the arrows for each setting to increase or decrease the values, or you can type a value in the text boxes.

Not sure where the grid should start? You can use the Info pane to tell you exactly where to set the Offset values for the grid preference. Choose View > Navigation Tabs > Info to open the pane (Figure 91d). As you move the mouse over the page, you see the values change in the pane; note the horizontal or vertical value at your desired location and then use the value to set the Offset preference. Of course, you can use the Info pane for other purposes as well, such as checking the size and location of a button, form field, or drawn object.