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dewey lybecker
Participant
January 4, 2020
Question

Illustrator align tool isn't working at all..

  • January 4, 2020
  • 2 replies
  • 385 views

my align tool just stopped working today, I didn't press anything weird, watched a couple tutorials on how to fix it. Still nothing. I'll highlight what I want to align, makes sure the layer is unlocked, made sure I'm not trying to move any other layers, and still nothing. Any help would be appriciated!

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2 replies

Myra Ferguson
Community Expert
Myra FergusonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 5, 2020

It's hard to know what the issue is without seeing any screenshots or having more info, so here are are a few guesses:

 

1. If you've got 1 object and Align To: in the Align panel is set to Align to Selection or Align to Key Object, Align won't do anything because there's no other object selected to align it to.

 

2. If you have 2 objects, but one of them is currently open in Isolation Mode (Illustrator will show a breadcrumb trail at the top with a layer name and what the object is) and Align To: is set to Selection, Align has nothing to align it to.

 

3. If you have 2 objects, but only one is selected and Align To: is set to Selection, then Align still has nothing to align it to.

 

There are probably some other scenarios like if the object is grouped with a stray dot and that's affecting the positioning of the alignment. But we'd need more information on the steps you took, what your current Align To: setting is, and what kind of alignment you're looking to do in order to diagnose it better.

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dewey lybeckerAuthor
Participant
January 6, 2020
Hey thanks for the wisdom. I really appreciate it. I’ve never had the issue using it before. I’m mainly using it to center obejects. I’ll make a shape, then make sure it’s selected. Then I’ll go to align and try to center the object but nothing happens.

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Myra Ferguson
Community Expert
Myra FergusonCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 6, 2020

Are you using Align To: Artboard? Can you post a screenshot of your screen with the Layers panel and Align panels open?

Monika Gause
Community Expert
Monika GauseCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 4, 2020

Align is not a tool, what are you doing exactly? Screenshots help.

ALso what about the layers? Align works on objects.

https://helpx.adobe.com/illustrator/using/moving-aligning-distributing-objects.html#align_and_distribute_objects

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