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Align, distribute, and arrange elements

The Arrange & Align button in the Plate Editor toolbar opens the flyout below. The toolbar is present during element editing, for editors and managers only. Every action in the flyout is undoable.

Align

Align Left, Align Center, Align Right, Align Top, Align Middle, and Align Bottom act on two or more selected elements. The edge options use the selection's outermost edge; the center options its average center.

Align to Plate

Align Left to Plate, Center Horizontally on Plate, Align Right to Plate, Align Top to Plate, Center Vertically on Plate, and Align Bottom to Plate position the selection as one block on the plate, ignoring gutter and border. One element is enough.

Distribute

Horizontal and Vertical need three or more selected. Centers between the two extremes are spaced evenly; the outermost two do not move.

Smart

Fit to Plate lowers font size, never raises it, until each text or variable element fits the usable width, then centers it horizontally, holding its vertical position inside the boundary. With nothing selected, all of them are fitted.

Auto Arrange resizes text, variable, and image elements to fit, centers them horizontally, and spaces them evenly top to bottom in their existing order. Shapes are untouched; selection is ignored.

Both use an enabled gutter as the boundary, half the border width otherwise.

Grid and snapping

Grid visibility is toggled from Toggle Grid on the canvas. Grid Size, Grid Line Width, and Show Grid are set earlier, under Grid Settings in the plate settings step.

The grid is a guide, never engraved.

A dragged element's center snaps within 1 mm to the plate center and to other element centers, with a guide line. Holding Cmd/Ctrl while dragging disables this.

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