Aligning Objects in Illustrator

[Treehouse presents] 0:00 [Quick Tips][Aligning Objects in Adobe Illustrator][with Mat Helme] 0:02 Hey, what's up—Mat Helme here with a Treehouse Quick Tip: 0:06 Aligning objects in Adobe Illustrator CS6. 0:08 After we open up Adobe Illustrator CS6 and create a new document, 0:11 let's head over to the Tools Panel and grab the Rectangle tool and make a large rectangle. 0:15 Then, let's grab the Ellipse tool and make a smaller circle than the rectangle. 0:21 Then, let's grab the Star tool and make an even smaller star. 0:28 Now, so we're not confused, let's change the color of these so they're all different. 0:34 We can leave the rectangle blue; 0:38 let's make the circle orange and the star yellow. 0:40 Now, let's place these objects on top of one another like so. 0:47 Now with these objects selected, you can see in the Control Panel—at the top—I have the Align Panel. 0:56 Now, we can actually access this by going to the window, selecting Align, 1:02 and then we get the Align Panel. 1:08 Now, say if I want to make all of these objects align horizontally to the center, 1:10 I simply select that, and you can see they all align. 1:17 Now, if I wanted to align them vertically, I can do that as well. 1:19 And you can see they all line up. 1:24 Now say if I want to align them to the right side of the Art Board here, 1:27 I can do that by going to my Align Panel, selecting Show Options, go to Align To, 1:30 and select Align To Art Board, and then when I click Horizontal Align Right, 1:39 you can see that it aligns all the way to the right of the Art Board. 1:45 Now, if I want to align the objects to—say—a key object, 1:49 I can do that by selecting all of them, go to Align To, Align To Key Object, 1:53 and say if I select the circle, everything will now align left to the circle. 2:01 Now, say if my objects are spaced out like so, 2:13 and I want the star aligned to the left, the square aligned to the right, and the circle displayed in the middle, 2:16 I can do this by selecting all of them, then selecting Align To Art Board, and then select Horizontal Distribute Center. 2:26 You can see they all align perfectly. 2:39 Now, if I want to align all of these objects—say—40 pixels from one another— 2:43 because as you can see, it's not as even between the circle and square as it is between the circle and star— 2:48 I can select all of them and select Align to Key Object, then make 40 pixels in the Distribute Spacing, 2:53 and then select Horizontal Distribute Space, and you can see now they're all aligned from the star 40 pixels, 3:05 and then the circle to square 40 pixels. 3:13 This comes in real handy if you're creating—say—navigation for a website. 3:16 Now, say I have a very large stroke on the circle of—say—black, 3:22 and I want to left align all of these objects, 3:33 you'll notice that it's not aligning to the end of the stroke; it's aligning to the actual object, 3:38 and you can see this when we go to View and then Outline— 3:47 it shows all of the paths, and it's correct—they are aligned— 3:52 but we want to align it to the outside of that stroke. 3:56 So, let's switch back over to the Preview mode, and then in our Align Options, 3:58 we can use Preview Bounds, 4:04 so what that's going to do is align everything to the edge of the stroke. 4:07 Like so. 4:16 And that is how we align objects in Adobe Illustrator CS6. 4:20 For more in-depth tutorials and projects using Adobe Illustrator CS6, 4:24 head over to Treehouse and treat yourself to a gold membership—you deserve it! 4:28

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