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kphillips345
kphillips345
Participant
April 13, 2016
Answered

Is there a way to make a shortcut for aligning objects to your artboard?

  • April 13, 2016
  • 7 replies
  • 29426 views

Hi Adobeans,

I am looking for a way to assign a custom shortcut to, specifically, the Horizontal Align Center and Vertical Align Center commands in Illustrator CC 2015. I am a production artist and am constantly centering items in my page when I'm working with pre-created art, so this would be hugely helpful, instead of having to move my mouse up to the Align commands in the top of my toolbar and clicking both of those.

I managed to assign custom keystrokes to the correlating command in InDesign (Align to Page/Margins, etc.), but cannot seem to find a place to type in custom keystrokes for this in Illustrator. Is it just not a command you can assign shortcuts to? Or is there some workaround?

Thanks in advance!

    Correct answer Kurt Gold

    You can record an action and assign a shortcut to it.

    7 replies

    J
    judyb5270468
    Inspiring
    August 27, 2024

    For anybody trying to figure this in 2024, I ended up just assigning Center horizonal to the number 8 and vertical to number 9. It doesn't cause me any problems (so far).

     

    For anyone who isn't sure how to assign the keys, you just need to go to:

    Edit> Keyboard Shortcuts.

    • Then change the dropdown menu from Tools to Manu Commands.
    • Then go to Object > Align and assign the action to whatever button.

     

    When I want to align to my artboard I just hit 8 and 9 and that's it centered. Way faster workflow.

      D
      defaultnmuoz52tjh3g
      Participant
      June 3, 2025

      Thanks a lot!  This was very helpful!

      kphillips345
      kphillips345Author
      Participant
      June 6, 2018

      Since I asked this question, for anyone still reading, I did end up with a pretty feasible workaround that serves me well every day. I just assigned custom keyboard shortcuts to "Align to Page Vertically" and "Align to Page Horizontally." In my case they are kind of convoluted but I was running out of shortcuts to work with, so I did Cmd + Shift + 5 and Cmd + Shift + 6, respectively. Still wish Adobe had a built-in keystroke for this.

        obsessivetype
        obsessivetype
        Inspiring
        June 6, 2018

        Bump for visibility. (Adobe is clearly not reading their Feature Requests.)

        Alignment is a key function in design. That it can't be mapped to a keyboard shortcut (without an action) is insane.

          Monika Gause
          Community Expert
          Monika GauseCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          June 6, 2018

          obsessivetype  schrieb

          Bump for visibility. (Adobe is clearly not reading their Feature Requests.)

          Post it to http://illustrator.uservoice.com (and hope for many votes on the feature)

            obsessivetype
            obsessivetype
            Inspiring
            January 13, 2017

            Actions are not a good solution — too little flexibility in assigning a key combination.

            I want to set the same keyboard shortcut that I've assigned to Photoshop and Sketch align tools, not F6 or whatever. Please add align controls to the keyboard shortcuts menu.

              W
              Wilson Semilio
              Inspiring
              June 30, 2016

              Idea for Adobe: Why not use the "alt" key as a toggle between the two? This is used in so many other places. Then you would just have to hold down "alt" prior to clicking one of the align buttons, and it would define weather it's align to object or artboard.

                V
                VainMedia
                Participant
                September 15, 2018

                I came to this page trying to find a shortcut for exactly that -- toggling between aligning to artboard VS selection. Currently having to use the dropdown frequently for a project and getting tired of it.  +1

                  Plaintext
                  Plaintext
                  Participant
                  April 15, 2016

                  One side note which turns out to be very useful.

                  If you work with consistent page or artboard sizes, consider using the Transform dialogue X and Y coordinates instead of using the align to center buttons.  One advantage: If you want to select everything and center it on the art board, you won't have to remember to group everything first. But also—scriptability in the Actions palette.


                  Happy straightening!

                    Kurt Gold
                    Community Expert
                    Kurt GoldCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
                    Community Expert
                    April 13, 2016

                    You can record an action and assign a shortcut to it.

                      kphillips345
                      kphillips345Author
                      Participant
                      April 14, 2016

                      Oh, perfect response. I never would have thought of that. Thank you!

                      I
                      iBrads
                      Known Participant
                      April 14, 2016

                      A simpler solution would be just to click the 'align centre' buttons in the 'Align Palette'. You must have the 'Align to art board' pre selected for it to align to the centre of your page.

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