Aligning and Distributing Objects

InDesign lets you align and distribute objects, saving you the hassle of manually moving and placing each element, or figuring out the correct locations in the Control palette or Transform pane to do so. The Align pane is where InDesign offers these timesaving abilities .

New Feature ‚  

InDesign CS adds the ability to create keyboard shortcuts for the Align and Distribute buttons. Although there are no default shortcuts, these buttons are now listed in the Object Editing commands in the Keyboard Shortcuts dialog box (Edit ‚ Keyboard Shortcuts) so you can create shortcuts for them. Chapter 3 covers keyboard shortcuts in more detail.

The Align pane (Window ‚ Align or Shift+F7), shown in Figure 13-3, has several buttons, described in the callouts, that let you manipulate the relative position of multiple objects in two ways. You can

Figure 13-3: The Align pane contains 14 buttons that let you control the alignment and space between selected objects. If the two Distribute Spacing buttons are not displayed at the bottom of the palette, choose Show Options from the palette menu.

• Line up objects along a horizontal or vertical axis. For example, if you've randomly placed several small graphic frames onto a page, you can use the alignment buttons in the Align pane to align them neatly ‚ either horizontally or vertically. Figure 13-4 shows a before/after example of objects aligned with the Align pane.

  
  Figure 13-4: The rectangles on the left were aligned along the left edge of the leftmost object by clicking the Horizontal Align Left button in the Align pane. The result of the alignment operation is shown on the right.

• Distribute space evenly between objects along a horizontal or vertical axis. Here's a typical problem that's easily solved by using this feature: You've carefully placed five small pictures on a page so that the top edges are aligned across the page and there is equal space between each picture. Then you find out one of the pictures needs to be cut. After deleting the unneeded picture, you could use the Align pane to redistribute the space between the remaining pictures so that they're again equally spaced . Figure 13-5 shows a before/after example of the Align pane's Distribute Spacing capability, here showing the feature to align a series of vertically arranged objects.

  
  Figure 13-5: The objects on the left are unequally spaced. Clicking the Vertical Distribute Space button in the Align pane repositions the objects so that the spaces between the objects are equal, as shown on the right.

  Note ‚  

  The Align buttons don't work with objects that have been locked with the Lock Position command (Object ‚ Lock Position, or z +L or Ctrl+L). If you need to align a locked object, you must first unlock it (Object ‚ Unlock Position, or Option+ z + L or Ctrl+Alt+L). If the objects are on a locked layer, you'll need to unlock the layer.

  Tip ‚  

  The six alignment buttons are also available in the Control palette if you've selected multiple objects with the Selection tool (see Chapter 11 for more on the Control palette).

When you click on a button in the Align pane, selected objects are repositioned in the most logical manner. For example, if you click the Horizontal Align Left button, the selected objects are moved horizontally (to the left, in this case) so that the left edge of each object is aligned with the left edge of the leftmost object. Along the same lines, if you click the Vertical Distribute Center button, the selected objects are moved vertically so that there's an equal amount of space between the vertical center of each object.

Spacing can appear uneven if you click the Horizontal or Vertical Distribute buttons when objects of various sizes are selected. For objects of different sizes, you'll usually want to use the Distribute Spacing buttons (which make the space between objects even) rather than space objects based on their centers or sides (which is how the Distribute Object buttons work).

Note ‚  

If the two Distribute Spacing icons are not displayed at the bottom of the palette and you want to distribute objects, choose Show Options from the palette menu.

Tip ‚  

Sometimes the result of clicking a button in the Align pane isn't what you anticipate ‚ or want. If this happens, simply choose Edit ‚ Undo or press z +Z or Ctrl+Z and try another button.