MX

Snap to grid
When Snap to Grid is selected, grid points act like magnets. Right click on the pasteboard and choose
"Snap to" > "Snap to Grid" or use the menu option "Window" > "Snap to grid", (or press "."
(decimal point) on the numeric keypad). You can control the grid spacing from the options dialog (right
click and choose Page Options or use the menu command "Utilities" > "Options
") on the Grid and Ruler tab. By default web document templates have snap to grid on, with a single pixel
grid, so that normally all object dimensions and positions are whole pixels.
When dragging objects the edges will snap to grid points. If the size of the object is such that opposing
edges can't both be snapped, the edge that snaps depends on the direction the object is dragged in.
This shows a coarse grid with 5 subdivisions between major divisions. The shape has a very thick gray
outline. Because the object has been dragged down and to the left, the lower and left outside edges are
snapped to the nearest grid point.
Note:
The default grid spacing is 50 pixel spacing for major grid lines with 50 subdivisions. This means the grid
is spaced at exactly one screen pixel and so may appear not to be working at a normal 100% zoom. If
you zoom in to say 500% then you can see it does snap correctly.
Alternatively, change the grid values to have, say, 10 subdivisions which means that the grid points are on
5 pixel boundaries.
Snapping and line widths
The Scale line widths control on the Selector
Tool
InfoBar affects whether snapping happens to the
bounds of objects including their outlines.
The above example shows a shape with a very thick gray outline. It also shows (thin black line) the
outline of the shape itself (you can see the thick outline is drawn equally on either side of the center line so
that it partly overlaps the inside of the shape and partially goes outside).
With scale line widths on, the width of the outline is deemed to be important and so 'snap to grid' will
snap the bounds of objects, including outlines, to the grid. Snap to objects will allow you to snap using
the bounds or the outline center lines. If the outlines as they appear on screen are small, so there is little
difference between these two snapping positions, bounds snaps are favored. So zoom in if you want to
snap outline centers in this case.
With scale line widths off, 'snap to grid' and 'snap to objects' will snap the center lines of objects, ignoring
the outline widths.
Because snapping honors the Scale line widths switch it means that the bounds used by snapping are
always the same bounds that are reported in the Selector Tool
infobar.
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