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RobH79
RobH79
Participating Frequently
March 18, 2015
Question

Why aren't we able to align area type vertically?

  • March 18, 2015
  • 4 replies
  • 15924 views

C'mon Adobe!

I use Illustrator to create a lot of diagrams, flow charts and organisation charts and I really hoped that when we made the switch from CS5 to CC that this would have been introduced by now!

I'm wondering whether I should just use InDesign instead, but the arrow set there is just plain ugly!

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    4 replies

    S
    ShatterproofHQ
    Participant
    June 29, 2018

    align area type vertically – Adobe Illustrator Feedback

    Bug report has been made. I can't find one requested. Please vote for it and share!

    RobH79
    RobH79Author
    Participating Frequently
    June 29, 2018

    I like your eagerness Jess, but this is not a bug (hence the inverted commas in my comment) it is a feature request, and a sorely lacking one at that!

    There are already a number of requests just ready for your vote:

    Illustrator Feature Requests: Top (1329 ideas) – Adobe Illustrator Feedback

      D
      designu46483552
      Inspiring
      June 29, 2018

      Hang on- isn't the fact that the align tool isn't working on text boxes, in this respect, a bug?

      RobH79
      RobH79Author
      Participating Frequently
      June 14, 2016

      So it turns out there is a way to centrally and vertically align text in a box (not so helpful if you only want to do so vertically but this might help out a few of you). It involves the use of the 'Covert to Shape ...' live effect in the Appearance Panel. Kudos goes out to Sebastian Bleak for pointing this one out:

      Adobe Illustrator "Convert To Shape: Rectangle" NSL WK 249 - YouTube

      Just a word on aligning objects to these shapes. Make sure you enable 'Use Preview Bounds' in Preferences > General if you want to align anything to the shape rather than the text.

      neverstoplearning​​ ohmnath  AndyQ​ KatVivSilly-VLadyGuineveremusickbirdfilipinascimento

        T
        TomAuger
        Participating Frequently
        July 10, 2018

        It's not EXACTLY what we need, but that is certainly a cool technique! Thanks for sharing. That Appearance panel has so many hidden gems.

        A
        AndyQ
        Known Participant
        June 3, 2016

        It's an aggravating marketing decision by Adobe, probably to get you to use InDesign (which is a great application, but not at all suitable for drawing diagrams). There's no good reason why vertical justification isn't allowed--it would save vast amounts of time, just being able to centre blocks of text within diagram elements, or as I'm doing today making sure business card details sit at the bottom boundary and work upwards. Thankfully I'm using CorelDraw most of the time now so I have to put up with Illustrator less and less. AI is the big, sluggish, awkward lemon in the Adobe CC Suite. If only I didn't have to deal with AI files every day.....my blood pressure problems would be over...

        H
        henrikh65065846
        Participating Frequently
        November 7, 2016

        You can make text on a path, in a spline, on a mesh, on a sphere and 1.000 other ways. So Adobe want me to do all my work in Illustrator and then go to inDesign just to ad my text? They wouldn't even let me do the text in InDesign and copy paste it into Illustrator. Makes me mad.

          D
          designu46483552
          Inspiring
          June 29, 2018

          This thread's so old I can't believe this is still an outstanding bug in AI CC 2018- can someone please point me towards the solution?

          Thanks.

          K
          KatViv
          Participant
          March 18, 2015

          Hello Rob,

          Illustrator isn't as fully equipped for layout application as InDesign because it is not fundamentally for that. However, there are work arounds to still do so. Of course, it will take some more time.

          If you want a text to be centered vertically with the image holder, select the items you want to align and use the “align” pallet. You also might want to play around with the “align to” area in the bottom right part of the palette. Also to note is that when you have at least two objects selected the icons in the align palette show up at the top in the toolbar.

          Also,

          The "key object" align function is really handy for this.

          1. Select the objects in question (presumably your text frame and an image or background.
          2. Click on your key object again, that's the area you're aligning to. You'll notice that it gets a selection border that's three or four times thicker than normal.
          3. Now you'll find that the align to indicator (in the panel or the control bar) shows a little key icon. When you use any align option, everything aligns itself to that object.

          Content from: How to vertically center text in a box in Illustrator CS5 - Graphic Design Stack Exchange

          RobH79
          RobH79Author
          Participating Frequently
          March 18, 2015

          Thanks KatViv‌ I was already aware of the alignment tools and the key object, and while I agree Illustrator is not a layout app and should never encroach on the capability of InDesign in that respect, the feature has been requested many times in the past over the years and it's so basic and fundamental to design layout that it is laughable to see it is still excluded.

          I want to be able to set the parameter and then not have to worry that when an additional line of text gets added I won't need to go back a re-align my work.

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