Snap objects

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When you move or draw an object, you can snap it to another object in a drawing. You can snap an object to various snap points on the target object. When you move the pointer close to a snap point, the snap point becomes highlighted, which identifies it as the pointer’s snapping target.

You can snap objects to other objects, to page elements (such as the center of the page), to the document grid, pixel grid, baseline grid, and guidelines. When you edit or draw in perspective, you can snap objects to perspective lines. When editing symmetry groups, you can also snap objects to symmetry lines. All these snapping options can be turned on or off from the View menu and from the Snap to button on the standard toolbar.

When you need to turn off the selected snapping options temporarily, you can disable all snapping from the Snap off button on the standard toolbar or the View menu. To restore the selected snapping options, you can enable snapping by using the same controls.

To snap an object to another object with greater precision, you can first snap the pointer to a snap point in the object, and then snap the object to a snap point in the target object. For example, you can snap the pointer to the center of a rectangle, drag the rectangle by the center, and then snap the rectangle to the center of another rectangle.

The pointer was snapped to an end node of the leaf (top), and then the leaf was dragged to snap to the end node of the branch (bottom).

Snapping modes determine which snap points you can use in an object. The table below includes descriptions of all available snapping modes.

 

Snapping mode	Description	Snapping mode indicator
Node	Lets you snap to a node on an object
Intersection	Lets you snap to a geometric intersection of objects
Midpoint	Lets you snap to a line segment midpoint
Quadrant	Lets you snap to points that are at 0°, 90°, 180°, and 270° on a circle, ellipse, or arc
Tangent	Lets you snap to a point on the outside edge of an arc, circle, or ellipse where a line touches, but does not intersect, the object
Perpendicular	Lets you snap to a point on the outside edge of a segment where a line is perpendicular to the object
Edge	Lets you snap to a point that touches the edge of an object
Center	Lets you snap to the center of the closest object (arc, regular polygon, or curve centroid)
Text baseline	Lets you snap to a point on the baseline of artistic or paragraph text

You can adjust a number of snapping settings. For example, you can disable some or all snapping modes to make the application run faster. You can also set a snapping threshold, which specifies the distance from the pointer at which a snap point becomes active.

When you move or transform an object, the pointer may snap to a snap point in the object itself. You can disable snapping of objects to their own snap points, which is useful for moving and transforming complex objects.

To turn snapping on or off

 

To	Do the following
Enable snapping for all objects	Click View Snap To Objects.
Enable snapping objects to page elements (edges, edge midpoints, and page center)	Click View Snap To Page.
Enable snapping objects to the pixel grid	Click View Snap To Pixels. This option is available only when pixel view is enabled. For more information, see Viewing modes.
Enable snapping objects to the document grid	Click View Snap To Document Grid. For more information, see Document grid and pixel grid.
Enable snapping objects to the baseline grid	Click View Snap To Baseline Grid. For more information, see Baseline grid.
Enable snapping objects to guidelines	Click View Snap To Guidelines. For more information, see Set up guidelines.
Enable or disable snapping objects to perspective lines	Click View Snap To Perspective Lines. Perspective lines include horizon and viewport lines. This option is available only when you draw or edit perspective groups. For more information, see Edit perspective groups.
Enable snapping objects to symmetry lines	Click View Snap To Symmetry Lines. This option is available only in symmetry mode. For more information, see Edit symmetry.

A check mark next to the snap command indicates that snapping is turned on.

You can also press Alt + Z to toggle snapping to objects on and off, or press Alt + Y to toggle snapping to the document grid on and off.

You can also turn snapping modes on or off from the Snap To button on the standard toolbar.

To disable and enable snapping

You can also disable and enable all selected snapping options by pressing Alt + Q or by clicking the Snap Off button on the standard toolbar.

To temporarily disable snapping as you are moving an object, hold down Q.

To snap objects

To snap an object as you draw it, drag in the drawing window until the snap point in the target object becomes highlighted.

To adjust snapping settings

 

You can also
Prevent objects from snapping to their own snap points	Disable the Snap objects to themselves check box. Tip: You can turn snapping objects to themselves on and off by pressing Ctrl + Shift + H.
Display or hide snapping mode indicators	Enable or disable the Show Snap location marks check box.
Display or hide screen tips	Enable or disable the Show snapping mode in screen tip check box.

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