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Vectorgeek@work
Inspiring
January 9, 2023
Answered

Illustrator Align Tool locked to align to artboard only. Can't align to selection.

I've never had this happen before but I'm trying to align objects and it keeps defaulting to align to artboard. Even when I draw new objects the align to object selection is greyed out. Tried restarting Illustrator and it is still not working. 

Grrrrr!

Vectorgeek@work
Vectorgeek@workCorrect answer
Inspiring
January 9, 2023

A screenshot wouldn't help since it look like the align to selection is selected. I finally narrowed it down to one of the objects was a placed SVG object and it forced all the other objects to align to the artboard. The fix was to release the SVGs compound path and magically it can now be aligned with the selections. This was so weird!

7 replies

Participant
August 22, 2025

Please make the align tool work like it does in Indesign. 

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Known Participant
July 20, 2025

ADOBE IS OVERPRICED HSTI SLOW SOFTWARE!

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Larry G. Schneider
Community Expert
Community Expert
July 20, 2025

Nothing better to do?

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Mike_Gondek10189183
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 9, 2023

This is a recourring isse. 

 

Select more than one object, and then you can switch to align to key object. The slecred state is not very obvious as ai a neutral color with black background.

 

Along time ago Adobe had this the way I myself preferred which was aligned to key object was selected by default, no matter how many objects selected. 

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Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 9, 2023

Can you please show us a screenshot with the selected objects and the Align panel?

 

It will default to artboard whenever only one object is selected.

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Vectorgeek@work
Vectorgeek@workAuthorCorrect answer
Inspiring
January 9, 2023

A screenshot wouldn't help since it look like the align to selection is selected. I finally narrowed it down to one of the objects was a placed SVG object and it forced all the other objects to align to the artboard. The fix was to release the SVGs compound path and magically it can now be aligned with the selections. This was so weird!

Translate
Monika Gause
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 9, 2023

Thank you for the feedback.

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