The live layout assistant is a fantastic tool for simply but effectively laying out any and every item in the Layout Window. It is designed to help you create layouts without the need for grids, guides or traditional alignment functions and it is always switched on, so there’s no need to worry that one day it won’t be there for some reason!

In its simplest form, the layout assistant will help to position a single colourway on the page by indicating the central axes and outer edges of the page.

Move your colourway towards the centre of the page and you will notice that when the centre of the colourway crosses the centre of the page in either a horizontal or vertical direction (or both), a dotted guide line will appear in the relevant direction.

Equally, when the edge of your colourway gets to the edge of the page, a dotted line appears at the page edge, allowing you to position it right on the edge of the paper. With two or more objects to position on the page, more live layout guides become available. As well as those described above, dotted lines will appear when moving an object close to another object so that their edges are in line, or their centres are in line.

If you wish to specify a space amount for the hint, you can do this within the Layout Inspector.

When a value is added in the Spacing tab, guides will indicate when two aligning objects are the specified distance apart. When you get close to an aligning position, you will see a slight snapping effect where the software pulls the selected item to the guide. Equally, if your Layout Window contains any traditional guides or grids and you have the snap function switched on, the live layout assistant will recognise them and apply the snapping function to the objects being moved. 

For more information about placement and aligning, click here.