In this tutorial we’ll learn how to use the Align panel in both Illustrator and InDesign. Because it’s almost exactly the same in both programs, I’ll be showing how to use it in Illustrator while adding in bits that are specific to InDesign in blue.
Understanding the Align Panel
The icon that looks like a bar graph and says ‘Align’ will open up your alignment panel. If you don’t see it, go to Window > Align (or Shift F7). It’s under Window > Object & Layout > Align (or Shift F7) in InDesign.
The top row has alignment options while the bottom row has distribution options. What’s the difference? Aligning means aligning every object you select to the furthest most left, right, bottom, top, or center. Distributing means equally distributing the objects you select from the left, right, bottom, top, or center.
Before we go into every alignment and distribution option, first click on the hamburger on the top right and click ‘Show Options’ if it’s not already clicked. There should now be a dropdown menu on the bottom right corner that says ‘Align To:’. Make sure you’re on ‘Align to Selection.’ That means everything you select will all align relative to each other. We will go more in to this later on.
Align to Selection
Here we have two squares and a circle placed randomly on the artboard. When we select them all and hit Horizontal Align Left, they will all align to the most left part of the selection, which is the pinkish square’s left.
Clicking Horizontal Align Center will move the objects either left or right to align everything to the center of the selection.
Clicking Horizontal Align Right will align everything to the most right part of the selection, which is the black square’s right.
Vertical Align Top will align everything to the most top part of the selection, which is the top of the black square.
Vertical Align Center will move the objects either up or down to align everything to the center of the selection.
Vertical Align Bottom will align everything to the most bottom part of the selection, which is the bottom of the pinkish square.
We’ll now play with distribution. Vertical Distribute Top will distribute the tops of the objects equally. I’ve drawn red lines on the top of each object to show that the tops of all the objects are equidistant.
Hitting Vertical Distribute Center will move the objects up or down to distribute the centers of the objects equally. Red lines are provided to show distance.
Vertical Distribute Bottom will distribute the bottoms of the objects equally. My objects were already vertically distributed so they haven’t moved. But I’ve added the red lines anyway to show that they’re equally apart.
Horizontal Distribute Left will distribute the lefts of the objects equally. Red lines provided to show distance.
Horizontal Distribute Center will move the objects either left or right to distribute the centers of the objects equally. Red lines provided to show distance.
Horizontal Distribute Right will distribute the rights of the objects equally. Red lines provided to show distance.
Align to Key Object
Now that we’ve gone through every alignment and distribution option, we can go through ‘Align To:’ menu. Change ‘Align to Selection’ to ‘Align to Key Object’. With this chosen, instead of everything being relative to each other, your objects will now be relative to a key object. The key object is the one that’s highest in your layers – in my case, my pink square. So here are all the alignment and distribution options applied to my pink square.
For those of you who actually went through the trouble of looking through each thumbnail, you’ll notice that when you align objects with the Key Object selection – alignment and distribution become identical.
Align to Artboard
Finally, we’ll be aligning and distributing to the artboard. This means that the objects will align themselves relative to the artboard. So things will align to the left, right, top, bottom, and center of the artboard.
The ‘Align To:’ menu in InDesign is roughly the same. However, in InDesign the ‘Align To:’ menu will include margin (the area inside the pink/purple lines on the page), page (which is equivalent to the Illustrator artboard), and spread (which is the left and right page put together).