Participant

Answered

Precise snapping to guides and points, Smart Guides do not work properly!

Forum|Forum|14 years ago
August 24, 2011
18 replies
285825 views

I'm an architect and use Illustrator to do detail and presentation plans that need to be very precise.

I upgraded to CS5 from Freehand X, due to the fact the in OS Lion, Freehand doesn't work anymore and unfortunatelly finally died.

After more than 20 years using Freehand, I have noticed how hard it is to work with precision guides and snaping in illustrator CS5, instead of drawing precise objects in precise locations, it takes you 3x longer because you cannot snap to guides, the objects you draw are never aligned properly with a big error probability, so you have to double check always, adjust. move, resize and it's a hell!!!

Smart Guides don't work most of the time.

FORGET THE GRID (not the point in this problem).

Example 1:

I have 2 guides one vertical and one horizontal that cross eacother, I want to start a rectangle (Tool M) from the intersection to another intersection of another 2 guides, when you place the cursor near the starting intersection it doesn't snap to the guides, neither on the other intersection where you want the rectangle to end!

So I need to activate the bounding box, zoom in resize on one corner then go to the other and do the same, it's ridiculous.

Example 2:

When you grab a rectangle and want to place it in the corner of a guide intersection, you need to grab the exact corner to do that and drop it very close to the intersection and it does snap to the guides, BUT when you grab the rectangle from the middle (when you don't have the "Object Selection by Path Only" activated) it's impossible to snap it to any guide!!! That is a bum!

In Freehand doing these kind of tasks was so much easier and totally precise when you did that.

You had the option of Snap to Guides, AND Snap to Points.

Can someone tell me if Smart Guides just don't work properly and why do we have such ridiculous precision errors when we want to draw very precise...?

Help would be appreciated.

Thanks

Correct answer mmoore2144

I'm a pretty experienced AI user as of CS3, so I was pissed when I upgraded to CS6 last week and couldn't get an object path to snap to another object path easily. CS3 was perfect. But after a few hours of frustration I think I've figured it out. My settings are below, but read the last paragraph to see what I think the real solution is.

Preferences > Selection & Anchor Display:

Tolerance: 3 px
Uncheck "object selection by path only"
Check "snap to point" 8 px
Check "control click to select objects behind"

Preferences > Smart Guides:

Check Alignment Guides
Check Object Highlighting
Check Transform Tools
Check Construction Guides
Check Anchor Path Labels
Uncheck Measurement Labels
Snapping Tolerance 8 pt

But here is what I think really matters. Grab your object you want to move with the Selection Tool (V) and begin to move it close to the anchor or path you want to align it with. Then, and only after its close, press and hold Control, while still holding the left mouse. This should result in the desired precision snapping we got with CS3.

J

JaqScot

Participant

I have used Illustrator for decades and have never been more dissappointed and frustrated because I cannot move objects precisely. I do not know what the developer did but perhaps it has to do with the pixel grid, but I used to be able to place objects precisely relationship to other items. But no more. I have tried changing settings, unselecting snap to pixel grid and nothing works. I have never been so dissappointed in Adobe. They have ruined the program in my estimation.

C

Creatinnovate

Known Participant

What a joke for Adobe to state this problem has been solved. Imprecise object alignment and snap to guide or object has been the Illustrator formula for more than a decade. You can reset Preferences till the cows come home, turn on Smart Guides ad nauseum - none of this has any effect on performance.

For every precise object placement, the work process is as follows:

"Snap" to object in Outline mode.
Zoom in to 64000% (requires several steps) in order to see that the alignment is waaaaaay off.
Squint and drag object until the outline of each object appears as one outline.
Repeat until you have to see an orthopedic surgeon and find another career.

Clearly, adobe doesn't care about critical basic functionality or the user experience.

Adobe Inc. Business Strategy:

1) Add more features 2) Raise the price 3) Force users to pay monthly for the privilege without ever owning the application they are paying for - Stop paying and you have no access to the files you have created.

D

defaultgn5ldnk4o0di

Participant

Almost 2024 and this matter has not evolve a bit... I hope another develloper will take its customers needs more seriously. Adobe at least quit pretending this subject has been taken care of, your detailed "solution" is nothing more than a time waster.

E

erlksdfhqp

Participating Frequently

20+ versions in, it's clear that the Illustrator team WILL NEVER understand intuitive UX.

D

dsedlarski

Participating Frequently

Let me tell you what the problem is...

The problem is that "I have the same question" button in these post still have just a few clicks. Maybe when the number there reach thousands and thousands, Adobe will decide to pay attention about this BIG PROBLEM!!!

E

erlksdfhqp

Participating Frequently

[abuse removed by moderator]

M

mowglivj

Inspiring

I am increasingly losing my patience with Adobe. Bugs keep piling up, multi screen use is a COMPLETE NIGHTMARE and it's impossible to do any accurate drawing in illustrator. It's a joke that using traditional methods of technical drawing like compass and protractor are faster and more accurate.

G

guntau26232742

Participant

Hi, I had the same problem (previously worked in Corel) & found that this works for me:

1) go to Edit -> Preferences -> Smart Guides

2) in section Snapping Tolerance input 10 pt (or more if necessary)

This will change how close to a path/guideline/object you need to put the cursor / drag object to for it to snap to a path.

*Make sure Smart Guides are enabled (Ctrl + U)

D

dallasl96155266

Participant

Fracking awesome! 10pt tolerance ! The tool is ok now. Holy crap.. I moronically kept trying to get tolerance to accept very low decimal pt numbers.

D

Dd53929163

Participant

When you are virtually the only trick in town, as Adobe is, you don't need to worker harder to improve the tools of the trade so to speak. With that being said, I understand your frustration.

Sometimes illustrator is finicky—it works some of the time, and sometimes it needs to be prodded. Funny that Illustrator has always been marketed for its accuracy, but I find InDesign much more precise and accurate.

What I find useful is the Preview mode. In preview, you can be more precise with your bezier points and Smart Guides. Using guides and the measurement snap tool gives you the option to snap a zero point on a guide, then using your transform tool you can snap the object to the guide by changing the object point to zero.

Also, when using Smart Guides, turn off Snap to Grid. Having both on at the same time will create conflict. The program can not decide which point you are asking it to snap to.

Hope this helps.

J

juliem18359647

Participating Frequently

I design a lot of scientific posters and it is annoying that I can't create a bunch of panels that are aligned to each other, and then lock those panels so that I can further align objects to those panels. Once panels are locked, they're useless and I have to align by eye. If I unlock them, then I can align to the panels, but they get OUT of alignment to each other. What am I missing here?

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

For the longest time Adobe Illustrator wouldn't allow object alignment while keeping a specified object locked in one place. Adobe only added this capability to Illustrator in a recent version. You have to shift-select the two objects and then while holding down the shift key you shift-click the object you want stationary once again. You'll see a border light up around that object if you do the shift-clicking correctly. But if you do the shift-clicking too fast you'll get dumped into that Flash symbol editing mode. Once you have the objects correctly selected you can apply an alignment command to them, but you have to make sure your alignment functions are set to objects and not the page or something else.

By comparison, for well over 20 years CorelDRAW has defaulted to keeping the last object shift-clicked into a selection locked into one place for alignment functions. Just two clicks and then you get to apply the alignment command, either on a tool bar or by keyboard short cut. It's a lot faster and easier.

The same thing goes for anchor point alignment. In Adobe Illustrator it's pretty frustrating to align anchor points with any kind of control. Illustrator requires the user to apply extra, unnecessary clicks and those extra clicks don't always work. CorelDRAW's anchor point alignment works the same way as object alignment. The last point selected stays put and other points align to it. Very simple. Corel messed around with this behavior some in version X6, but restored the old and better behavior with an update in X7.

J

juliem18359647

Participating Frequently

Thank you for the reply, BobbyH5280‌. I have the latest illustrator (cc 2015) but this doesn't seem to work for me on a Mac .

I'm hoping it does work, and there's is just something I don't understand.

The shift select of two objects works fine (as usual) but when holding down the shift key, if I then click the object I want to be stationary, all it does is to unselect it.

Thus, when I then click an align button, unsurprisingly, nothing happens.

Ergo, frustration...

I really don't mind paying the hundreds of dollars a year for a license IF THINGS JUST WORK.

Else, I will just walk away and use Graffle; life is too short for this.

B

Bobby Henderson

Community Expert

Snapping is yet another area where CorelDRAW just plain trounces Adobe Illustrator. CorelDRAW hasn't always been perfect in terms of various snapping behaviors, but the current and past few versions have been dead-on precise regardless of zoom level. Snap to point, snap to objet edge, snap to grid, etc. -it all works precisely and easily. It's also much easier to set up desired snapping behavior (no digging through multiple menus, palettes, dialog boxes and what not to arrive at a combination that almost works properly).

Adobe Illustrator is great for certain things, but it is very ill-suited for technical drawing/design work. This is one of the reasons why I continue to use CorelDRAW (and a Windows-based PC) along with using the Adobe CC applications. Adobe Illustrator can't even manage to correctly align an editable text object to a box (aligning it by cap letter height). That's a basic, ground level function of sign making applications.

M

mikef94357134

Participant

I'm on creative cloud, and trying to use Illustrator to make some precise logo changes. Seems like it's made for people who don't really care if their design is exact of not. I guess I'll have to do all my illustrator work in inDesign from now on, because it's the only way to be exact. I wish Adobe would fix this. So frustrating.

P

peaceprop

Known Participant

I've always been frustrated with Illustrator's seemingly inconsistent snapping behavior. This has been a major frustration and time-waster for me since Illustrator CS. Another poster above has touched on the alignment tools (and I believe these work amazingly well, once you master them you're almost golden.) However, just today, I literally can't draw a box to match the size of my artboard. I REPEAT: I CANNOT DRAW A RECTANGLE TO MATCH THE SIZE OF MY ARTBOARD, IT WILL NOT SNAP TO THE CORNER. I mean, what is going on here? Smart guides are "ON", and it tells me I'm in the corner at my point of origin, great...wonderful. I continue to draw the box down to the bottom-right corner of the artboard and FML IT WILL NOT SNAP to the CORNER.

Now, I know I can I just type in the correct dimensions and be done with it, but that's not the point.

This drives me crazy.

I also feel like it has become increasingly worse with each new version.

I have nothing to offer, just wanted to ventilate my rage about this.

dissidently

Inspiring

Just be thankful you're not trying to do anything precise in After Effects, where nearly nothing snaps to anything else. Blind luck is the best chance of accuracy in AE. It's used for motion graphics, but it's not designed for that, apparently. Geometrics be damned.

I've come across the problem you're talking about before, many times. My only solution is to turn on "Smart Guides" and turn off "snap to grid" and "Snap to pixel" and then use the little popup window to know when the size matches the artboard.

Why is a "work-around" required for the most basic of drawing precision in Adobe Illustrator?

The better question might be "why do we need to draw a box the size of the artboard to create coloured backgrounds?" But that's getting far beyond the scope of forethought.

M

mmoore2144

Participating Frequently

Like a lot of other users on here, when I upgraded from CS2 I was pissed that the smart guides weren't "working." Then I played with different controls and settings. Just hold down control while aligning or creating new shapes. It will snap precisely.

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