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Participant
March 25, 2023
Question

How to snap two rectangles/boxes on top of one another

  • March 25, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 2724 views

Hi guys.

 

This issue is officially driving me insane. It is so incredibly simple and I can do it in Photoshop in less than one minute. But in Premiere? Not at all.

 

I've legit got back pain after spending 3 plus hours being hunched over trying to align two rectangles (they are on seperate layers) with some text in both of them (also on their separate layers).

 

I've looked through Google, YouTube and Reddit. 

 

It seems the only damn thing people are covering is how to center an object either to the center or the edges of the screen. I know how to do this.

 

What I want to do is to perfectly align two rectangles on top of each other. You know? Pretty damn simple. You've got one box here and I simply want another box that I can drag and snap directly on top of the other one.

 

That's literally it.

 

The snap in program doesn't solve this. Guides don't solve this. 

 

How does one snap two shades to one another in Premiere? That's what I have googled and gone down a rabbit hole that left me nowhere. So angry right now.

 

How can something this basic which takes mere seconds to Photoshop be so impossible in premiere?????

This topic has been closed for replies.

2 replies

Ann Bens
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 26, 2023

Premiere is not Ps and v.v

You will have to write a feature request for this.

 

I would copy top layer to bottom layer.

Snap in position and copied back to top layer.

Community Expert
March 26, 2023

Every object in Premiere has x and y position coordinates. If both graphics/layers have their anchor point in the same position (centered for example) then typing in identical coordinates should center them directly on top of each other.

Also, if these boxes are both layered in the same Essential Graphic then you can hold down shift to select both and then the alignment controls below them will enable you to align by center or whatever edge you choose.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------JVK | Editor/Designer/Software Instructor. Pr, Ae, Ch, Ps, Ai, Id
Participant
March 26, 2023

I appreciate the response - but two problems:

 

I tried this experiment yesterday with centering the anchor point and then using alignment controls in essential graphics. I made a text layer, then added the box as a "background" to that text.

 

I then took a screenshot of that while zoomed in and copy pasted it into Photoshop and checked the distance from the edge of the box to where they meet the text and sure enough it was off. So premiere has issues with regards to what is actually considered centered.

 

Then there is the issue of the box in essential graphics not being scaled like I want in terms of dimensions. I don't know how to fix that.

 

Secondly - I don't want to follow the edge of the actual screen. I want one box with text in it in one place. And another box with text in it directly above it. That's it.

 

I'm attaching a pic i literally just made in response to this reply of yours (which I DO appreciate) which will hopefully communicate exactly what I want.

 

Community Expert
March 26, 2023

Do your background boxes need to be independent of the text (like will they animate separately at all)? If not then try the Background option under the Appearance section at the bottom. This creates a box directly behind your text and you can change the color and also expand it, which will add pixels in equal amounts on all 4 sides. It can look odd with some lowercase text with descenders but all cap text like yours should work really well. That way you only have two EG layers (the text) instead of four.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------JVK | Editor/Designer/Software Instructor. Pr, Ae, Ch, Ps, Ai, Id