• Global community
    • Language:
      • Deutsch
      • English
      • Español
      • Français
      • Português
  • 日本語コミュニティ
    Dedicated community for Japanese speakers
  • 한국 커뮤니티
    Dedicated community for Korean speakers
Exit
2

how to align objects on a diagonal axis or line

Community Beginner ,
Sep 26, 2009 Sep 26, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

How can I align objects diagonally? Is it possible to turn diagonal lines into guides? If not, what's the best way to do this?

I've created a provisional diagonal line and aligned my other object to this line. But it's a painstaking process and because the diagonal coordinates change incrementally it's easy to make mistakes. I need an error-proof method to do this.

Thanks in advance!

Views

40.7K

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines

correct answers 1 Correct answer

Community Expert , Jul 09, 2018 Jul 09, 2018

Hi catdotgif ,

this is a very old thread started in 2009!

In the meanwhile some things have changed and we have another tool at hand that will help to align objects to a diagonal axis or a diagonal line. With CS6 and above one could rotate the page plus the elements on the page. Then you can drag out guides that are parallel with the rulers. Aligning to the guides that were created after page rotation is very easy.

Important note:
Since there is a bug with page rotation and elements on the page that

...

Votes

Translate

Translate
Community Expert ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I think it would be best to align them horizontally or vertically, then select all and rotate the items.

I'm pretty sure a Javascript could do it, but the maths for rotated items is horrid

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

[Jongware] wrote:

I think it would be best to align them horizontally or vertically, then select all and rotate the items.

I'm pretty sure a Javascript could do it, but the maths for rotated items is horrid

I think you and I are viewing this differently, but your interpretation is also interesting, if I understand it. You think the items should be rotated so an axis matches the slope of the diagonal, right? I'd do that by grouping and rotating the group.

My interptretation is that the axes of the individual objects should not change, but that you should be able to snap an edge, corner, or center to a sloped or elliptical (let's see you come up with a script for that one ) line.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I think you're both saying the same thing... and that's what I've done.

I have a series of horizontal lines -- stripes -- going across the page, the edges of which have to line up with a line sloping at let's say a 12 degree angle. I created the stripes, grouped them and rotated the group at that angle. Great. But my design isn't done, I'm just experimenting, etc. Or, later I have to make changes, the client wants additional stripes added and placed along that same sloping line. It's impossible to do that without starting over from scratch.

Plus, there's no way to make any other kinds of adjustments. If one of the stripes is longer or shorter than should be, there's no way to snap it to my diagonal "guide" line. And because the guide line is at a diagonal there's no way to know for sure what the correct coordinates of my new stripes are with relation to the previous stripes.

So... short of doing this in Illustrator and bringing it in (which I prefer not to have to do)... the above mentioned workaround seems to be the only way.

Hard to believe this isn't a regular feature in InDesign.

Thanks for your input.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks, that's what I've been doing, for lack of a better solution.

The problem is that if you have to go back and add elements that rotate at the same angle it's hard to get them exactly lined up. And nothing snaps at an angle, which makes things even more difficult.

Let's hope Adobe adds this very necessary feature in its next iteration.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Contributor ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Scarlet if you look under your transform pallet you'll see ID remembers all your rotations.

So all you do is align, group, then rotate

If a change is needed change the angle back to 0 in said pallet and repeat.

Just remember Image or link rotation is independent of Box rotation

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Thanks, but doesn't this information also show up in the control panel? In any case, it's possible (although cumbersome) to discover the original angle by ungrouping and clicking on an individual element.

However, that's not the main issue. The problem arises in trying to re-align a new element, not to the angle, but to the proper coordinates on a diagonal line.

The ability to turn a diagonal line into a "snappable" guide line is sorely missing, and workarounds don't truly do the job.

I've just put in a request for this feature. Hopefully, Adobe will provide this in the next version of ID.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Contributor ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

It would be VERY nice to see a "make guides" option like in AI.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

And an import guides from AI - for the jobs that cross the applications to completion.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Contributor ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

ohhhh I like that!!!

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
Mar 31, 2021 Mar 31, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

pretty clever approach, thanks! 🙂

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Sep 27, 2009 Sep 27, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Alas, this is a feature not yet available. I've been asking for the ability to make arbitrary guides for years, as in Illustrator, and the more who join in the better the chances it will happen. Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I have had to do the same, though not very often. Select and align all your elements (H&V) so they are on top of one another, evenly distribute them and rotate to the angle you wish. From there, select one of your images, and in the control panel, you will see the angle rotation of your image - change that back to zero with your center point selected and then select your next image, and transform again (cmd+opt+3). That's the best precision I can get myself.

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Great suggestions, thanks!

And love the import guides from Illustrator....!

Adobe, are you following this?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

I'll send a user request... Just got the hang of that process and I love telling people who don't listen to me what they should be doing. hehe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Engaged ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Easy to do - Give it a shot... the more of us who like it, the better chances there are of getting it. ;o)

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Sep 28, 2009 Sep 28, 2009

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Scarlett F wrote:

Adobe, are you following this?

Unfortunatley not in any official sense. real feature request must go through the web form...Adobe - Feature Request/Bug Report Form

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Explorer ,
Jul 09, 2018 Jul 09, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Rather than positioning the items and rotating them into place, if you place the beginning and the end items exactly where you want them along the line, then place as many objects as you want between them, then you can use distribute horizontal *followed by* distribute vertical, and it is just like you had distributed along the diagonal line. 

Simple enough that I don't think a separate tool is warranted, if you're just trying to work with a diagonal line.  Does that address what you're trying to do?

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jul 09, 2018 Jul 09, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hi catdotgif ,

this is a very old thread started in 2009!

In the meanwhile some things have changed and we have another tool at hand that will help to align objects to a diagonal axis or a diagonal line. With CS6 and above one could rotate the page plus the elements on the page. Then you can drag out guides that are parallel with the rulers. Aligning to the guides that were created after page rotation is very easy.

Important note:
Since there is a bug with page rotation and elements on the page that should be rotated with the page you better rotate two pages instead a single one. Then the bug will not hit.

Some screenshots below to illustrate this.

A straight line rotated by 12° you want to align some objects with.

DiagonalAxes-ObjectsYouWantToAlign-1.PNG

Use the Page Tool to rotate at least 2 pages with -12°. Note: The checkbox is checked that will rotate all elements on the page together with the page.

DiagonalAxes-ObjectsYouWantToAlign-2.PNG

Now select the graphic line and all other elements you want to align with. Use the Align and Distribute Panel. It will still work parallel to the rulers.

DiagonalAxes-ObjectsYouWantToAlign-4.PNG

Rotate back the two pages and you are done:

DiagonalAxes-ObjectsYouWantToAlign-5.PNG

To select two or more pages with the Page Tool just start by selecting one, hold the Shift key and add another page to the selection by clicking the next or previous page. Cmd + A ( Mac ) or Ctrl + A ( WIn) will select all pages in the document.

Regards,
Uwe

( EDITED )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Jul 13, 2018 Jul 13, 2018

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Another note on my page rotation solution:
Best do this in a separate document.

I found, that if there are guides on the page, rotate-unrotate would move the guides on the page a bit. Not all together by a distinct amount, but every single guide by a different amount. So that problem cannot be fixed easily. That's another bug. Guides from the an applied master are not affected. Also not affected all items on the page that were not selected to align them.

Regards,
Uwe

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Beginner ,
Sep 18, 2019 Sep 18, 2019

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

Hello Uwe, I can't find where to transform the page on a diagonal. I only have the option to rotate 90, 180, etc. I've even created a second page just to try and align diagonal objects, hoping I would get an option to rotate 12 degrees. All of those options are greyed on on the toolbar. Is there not an easier way to do this??

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
Community Expert ,
Apr 13, 2021 Apr 13, 2021

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

TallmanShortWoman said on Sep 18, 2019:
"… I can't find where to transform the page on a diagonal. I only have the option to rotate 90, 180, etc.…"

 

What you see is perhaps the option to rotate the spread view from the Pages panel.

My solution is to use the Page Tool to select an individual page and the Transform panel ( or the Control panel ) to rotate the page with its contents.

 

Regards,
Uwe Laubender

( ACP )

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines
New Here ,
May 02, 2023 May 02, 2023

Copy link to clipboard

Copied

LATEST

One thing I do is use generate- light sweep set at low width high intensity then adjust angle as needed. There can be no snapping but works ok   Check out after effects afterthought on YouTube for more info

Votes

Translate

Translate

Report

Report
Community guidelines
Be kind and respectful, give credit to the original source of content, and search for duplicates before posting. Learn more
community guidelines