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About this lesson
Use the Publisher layout guides and rulers to control the placement of your shapes.
Lesson versions
Multiple versions of this lesson are available, choose the appropriate version for you:
2016, 2019/365.
Quick reference
Shapes, Control Placement
Move shapes into their exact positions by using Layout Guides, Zoom Control, Rulers and Nudge.
When to use
Layout guides are useful in any publication; Zoom Control works in all Microsoft programs; Rulers can be repositioned, and Nudge (with the arrow keys on your keyboard) are masterful in moving a shape.
Instructions:
Helpful Hints to Align Shapes:
- Turn on Layout Guides
a. Click the View Ribbon ,
- Click the Page Design ribbon
, Guides 
- Choose a ruler guide: As shapes align to the guide, that “line” will brighten.
2. Use “Nudge” (the arrow keys)
3. Zoom in (Ctrl + mouse wheel) or use bottom right of screen: 
4. Collapse ribbons for more viewing area (double click any ribbon tab)
Before: After:
5. Move the Rulers into your work area and add more Guidelines as necessary
6. Use a “Straight Edge” line to help align shapes if necessary.
- 00:04 Okay now that we have some shapes on our screen.
- 00:06 Let's talk about controlling the placement of those shapes.
- 00:09 And basically I have a pile of shapes here that I want to look like this little
- 00:13 geometric arrangement right here.
- 00:15 Couple of things to turn on.
- 00:16 On your view ribbon, turn on guide, so you get your margin guides.
- 00:20 On your page design ribbon, go to the Guides button and
- 00:23 actually choose one of these grid layouts right down here.
- 00:27 So we have a back panel of guides.
- 00:29 Another thing is to use a straight edge line.
- 00:32 Back in the day we called these rulers,
- 00:33 but I can't lay a ruler on top of my screen and have a guide.
- 00:36 So I can literally click and drag this little line and
- 00:40 that was made with Inert > Shapes > Line right here.
- 00:44 You can make your own or
- 00:46 I've got a premade one in the corner right over here that you can use.
- 00:50 We're gonna use nudge to move these around.
- 00:52 Your nudge is simply your cursor arrows on your keyboard.
- 00:55 So I've selected, let me scroll in,
- 00:58 Ctrl+Zoom in with your mouse wheel will help you zoom into your screen better.
- 01:05 I've selected that blue triangle,
- 01:07 I'm just tapping my arrow key and it's moving one pixel at a time.
- 01:11 Shift arrow will make it jump but just your single arrow keys moves 1 pixel,
- 01:16 so you can really nudge these into place quite nicely.
- 01:19 Okay collapse the ribbons for more viewing so we're better viewing.
- 01:22 So on any ribbon, double click the ribbon name,
- 01:24 it gives me more screen room to look at things.
- 01:27 And sometimes your guides still aren't enough, maybe you need a second guide.
- 01:31 Well if I move my mouse right over here to my left hand ruler,
- 01:34 right on the very edge, I have a resize.
- 01:37 I can literally click and drag a guideline,
- 01:40 see you've got a little line coming along.
- 01:42 So I can place a spare guideline anywhere I want.
- 01:45 Even on the top ruler, right on that edge looks like a resize arrow, but
- 01:49 I can click and drag down and put a extra guide on there.
- 01:52 Maybe that's not good enough.
- 01:54 Maybe I want this particular line to be exactly at the 4 inch mark.
- 02:00 Well how about if I could just move my ruler closer?
- 02:02 You can.
- 02:04 Actually if I could just click and drag that corner,
- 02:06 see it's up there in the corner that intersects between the rulers.
- 02:09 Click and drag will actually move your rulers closer to the screen
- 02:13 where you're working.
- 02:14 So if the guidelines aren't good enough, put your ruler on the screen,
- 02:16 it's that easy to do it.
- 02:18 All right, let's go ahead and get started.
- 02:20 The reason I'm using this straight edge is so that I can put some gap between these.
- 02:27 So I'm gonna go ahead and tilt this straight edge.
- 02:30 And now I'm going to go ahead and
- 02:33 rearrange these shapes to kind of look like this one.
- 02:37 So I'm just basically moving them around.
- 02:39 They're jumping into place, cuz I'm not working on the nudge right now.
- 02:43 This particular one, I'm gonna have, let's see, right over here.
- 02:47 I guess this one goes right here.
- 02:49 There we go.
- 02:50 And so, after I've got these sort of placed, now I wanna get finicky.
- 02:55 I think I'm gonna move this away a little bit, and I'm gonna Ctrl+Zoom in.
- 03:00 And I'm gonna actually line these up to the red bar.
- 03:04 And that's why this straight edge is there.
- 03:06 And so now I can,
- 03:07 if I have to tilt these to make it flush along that red straight edge.
- 03:12 I've got a guide and this guide this red bar, I can hit Delete at any time and
- 03:16 get rid of that thing.
- 03:17 Ctrl+Z brings it right back.
- 03:19 So now I can just work on this and nudge and
- 03:22 move everything around and get them all lined up.
- 03:26 But that's how you control the placement.
- 03:28 You simply use the tools that are on your screen.
- 03:31 Okay, so I'm gonna Ctrl+zoom out.
- 03:33 Your homework is to get this little pile of shapes
- 03:37 to look like the one in the corner.
- 03:39 Move your rulers where you need them.
- 03:41 Get your guides going.
- 03:42 Bring down some extra guides from the rulers if you need them.
- 03:46 And just practice with this, you will become an expert so quickly.
- 03:50 One of the best tips though is just giving yourself that extra little red line,
- 03:55 that straight edge line, so that you can line up stuff and
- 03:59 then just delete that thing when you're done with it.
- 04:02 Have fun with this practice, this is a great lesson to work on.
- 04:06 Thank you.
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