Ruler and column guides

Guides are non-printing, non-exporting lines that float over page objects and assist with their positioning. There are two types of guides to aid a variety of designs—ruler and column. They can be created and positioned by dragging from a ruler (for 'by eye' placement) or via View>Guides (for precision using the document's units or a percentage).

Ruler and column guides
Vertical and horizontal ruler guides (blue) over a three-column guide layout (grey).

Ruler guides

Ruler guides can be set in accordance with the horizontal or vertical ruler, but can be freely moved and positioned on your page.

To open Guides settings:

Do one of the following:

To add a ruler guide:

Do one of the following:

To clone a ruler guide:
Move Horizontal Cursor Move Vertical Cursor To move a placed ruler guide:

Do one of the following:

To position ruler guides by percentage:
  1. From the View menu, select Guides.
  2. Select the Percent option.

Percentages are calculated from the top-left of the document page.

To reposition the spread origin:
To show or hide ruler guides:
To remove ruler guides:

Do one of the following:

To lock all guides:

Column guides

Column guides allow you to specify a number of evenly spaced columns and rows and are perfect for designing layouts such as web mockups.

To add a column guide:
To change ruler or column guide colour:
  1. From the top menu, select View>Guides.
  2. On the pop-up dialog, click Set the column guide colour and set the new colour.
To show or hide column guides:
To remove column guides:

SEE ALSO: