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Participant
November 7, 2019
Question

determine anchor point as origin/center of object align to art board

  • November 7, 2019
  • 3 replies
  • 3090 views

Hello everybody,

 

is there a way to temporarily determine a reference point of an object as its new origin/center in order to pan/move/align it with the help of the alignment tool? I want to align an object in relation to the art board, so that it's placed in the center with a certain point.

 

Kind regards

 

Henry

 

This topic has been closed for replies.

3 replies

tromboniator
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2019

If I understand what you are looking for (and I'm not certain I do), how about this:

 

Lock the path containing the point you want to align to.

 

With Smart Guides active, with the Pen tool place a single point on top of that point.

 

Select the new point and the object you want to align with it.

 

Designate the new point as Key Object by clicking it once with the Selection tool.

 

Align as desired with the Align panel.

 

Peter

meganchi
Legend
November 7, 2019

Yes, if you show options under your Align panel, then in the lower right corner under "Align To", select "Align to Arboard".

John Mensinger
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2019

I'm not really sure this is what you mean, but with Smart Guides turned on, you can get visual feedback on the artboard-center alignment of any one of a dragged object's 9 basic points of reference; 3 of them demonstrated below using a rectangle:

 

 

Participant
November 7, 2019

Hi John,

 

thank you very much.

 

I'm looking for an arithmetical/mathematical way to snap an object to a position defined by using the options of the alignment tool. Aligning with the alignment tool immediately delivers a mathematically accurate result. Manually positioning an object can be tricky sometimes.

Example: In Blender there are features like 'Origin To selection', 'Origin To Geometry', 'Origin To Bottom' and so on in order to snap an Object to any location. I want to do the following: select any anchor point (Direct Selection Tool, Shortcut: 'A') > define anchor point as origin > align object vertically/horizontally by use of the alignment tool.

John Mensinger
Community Expert
Community Expert
November 7, 2019

"I want to do the following: select any anchor point (Direct Selection Tool, Shortcut: 'A') > define anchor point as origin > align object vertically/horizontally by use of the alignment tool."

 

Illustrator has no native feature for designating a selected anchor point as an origin or a reference of any kind. When aligning (to the artboard or to other selected objects) using the Align panel (or buttons on the Control bar), your choices are limited to top, bottom, left, right extents, and horizontal or vertical center.