The Smart Guides Slices Panel

The Smart Guides & Slices Panel

In addition to normal guides, Illustrator has a useful feature called Smart Guides, which performs a variety of cursor feedback options while you work. You can activate this feature by choosing View > Smart Guides. The Smart Guides preferences allow you to control the behavior of this feature (Figure C.8).

Figure C.8. The Smart Guides & Slices Preferences panel.

• Display Options. Text Label Hints identify items on your screen as you mouse over them (Figure C.9); Construction Guides help you align objects by indicating when they are on similar planes or angles as other objects (Figure C.10); Transform Tools offer similar functionality to construction guides, but they are specifically for when you are using any of Illustrator's transformation tools (Figure C.11); and Object Highlighting identifies the underlying original artwork when you mouse over artwork that has had effects or envelopes applied to it (Figure C.12).

  Figure C.9. A Text Label smart guide quickly identifies elements on your screen.

  

  
  

  Figure C.10. A Construction Guides smart guide makes it easy to position objects.

  

  
  

  Figure C.11. A Transform Tools smart guide helps when performing transformations.

  

  
  

  Figure C.12. An Object Highlighting smart guide makes it easy to quickly find and edit objects.

  

  
  

• Angles. The Angles settings allow you to specify at what angles Smart Guides appear when you're using any of the just-mentioned display options.

• Snapping Tolerance. The Snapping Tolerance setting specifies the distance to the original pixel from when a Smart Guide is activated.

• Slices. Slices are regions that you define to better optimize web graphics. In Preferences, you can define how these slices are indicated on the Illustrator artboard.