Guides

What is a Guide?

Before learning to create and manage guides in Vectornator, it's essential to define first what a guide is and why it's crucial when working with a vector tool.

Guides are straight lines that help you precisely align text and other vector objects on your canvas. They're always displayed on top of your design to help you follow the structure you defined for your project. However, they do not interfere with your document's layers, and they will not be displayed in the exported document.

There are three different types of guides available in Vectornator:

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‍Horizontal and Vertical Guides ~ic-guides~~ic-guides~ | are created by dragging them out directly from the Ruler.

Object Guides ~ic-line~~ic-line~ | can take the form of any shape (line, circle, etc.) and are created with the Guide Toolbar that appears when the Guides Panel is activated.

Smart Guides ~ic-smart-guides~~ic-smart-guides~ | are straight vertical or horizontal lines that appear automatically when objects are moved on the canvas if the Snapping option “Smart Guides” is enabled.

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All Guides in Vectornator are default set to active and visible, but you can choose to hide them in the Preferences. In Vectornator, each Artboard possesses its own set of guides.

Guides

How to Add Guides

When the rulers are activated and visible on your document, tap directly on the Ruler. A horizontal or vertical guide will appear instantly where you tapped or clicked.

To add a new Guide ~ic-guides~~ic-guides~, activate the Selection Tool, tap on the Ruler ~ic-rulers~~ic-rulers~, and drag it to where you want to set the new guide. A blue line will appear and will help and guide you during your design process. Each Guide has a handle with which you can move the guide to its desired position.

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Read more about Rulers ~ic-rulers~~ic-rulers~ in Vectornator →

How to Remove Guides

To delete a Guide, tap and hold the Guide, then swipe it outside the Artboard.

Object Guides

How to Access and Enable Object Guides

To enable drawing a new Object Guide, tap on the Guides icon ~ic-guides~~ic-guides~ on the right side of the Artboard’s title in the Layers Tab ~ic-layers-tab~~ic-layers-tab~ . A new panel containing all the Guides and Object Guides will open. The Toolbar will automatically transform and display only the drawing tools.

How to Create a New Object Guide

Choose a tool from the Guides Toolbar and tap it to start drawing your Object Guide. The shape of the Object Guide can be a line, square, circle, polygon, or spiral.

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How to Change the Position of Your Object Guide

You can position the Object Guides precisely on your canvas by using the x-y coordinates.

For example, if you want to set your vertical Guide to 50 px from the left border of your Artboard, select the guide, open the Arrange Tab ~ic-arrange-tab~~ic-arrange-tab~ , and set the x value = 50. The line will position automatically at the set coordinate value. Additionally, you can align object Guides to the Artboard by using the Align Options, as you can do with any other elements.

How to Duplicate an Object Guide

Select the Object Guide you want to duplicate and tap the Duplicate Mode ~ic-duplicate~~ic-duplicate~ button inside the Toolbar, then drag and drop your Guide the same way you would for any object inside Vectornator.

As with any object in Vectornator, you can combine the Duplicate and Scale Mode.

How to Hide / Show Object Guides

To hide or show Object Guides, tap the ~ic-show~~ic-show~ button to the right of each Object Guide in the Panel. Tap the Eye Button on each Guide’s sublayer to hide ~ic-hide~~ic-hide~ or show ~ic-show~~ic-show~ the selected singular Guide.

⚠️ Your Object Guides will always be displayed at the top of your design and locked while drawing on the other layers.

Snapping to Guides

You can activate the snapping options for your guides in Vectornator to speed up your workflow and let you work as precisely as possible.

In Vectornator, open the Quick Settings, and inside the Snapping options, toggle the Snap to Guides ~ic-snap-guides~~ic-snap-guides~ option on ~ic-toggle-on~~ic-toggle-on~.

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Smart Guides

The third type of guide you can find in Vectornator is the so-called Smart Guide ~ic-smart-guides~~ic-smart-guides~, which activates automatically to help you align the elements precisely on your canvas. You can activate the Smart Guide feature by going to Quick Settings ~ic-settings~~ic-settings~and activating the toggle in the Snapping section.

The activated Smart Guides snap to the following components in Vectornator:

• Artboards
• Unselected objects ( if you have a Group on your canvas, the Smart Guide will automatically snap to the object located at the top of the layer stacking order. )
• The previous position of selected objects (if you select more than one object, they are recognized as a single element by the Smart Guides)

The guides automatically snap to minimum, mid, or maximum snap points.

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Video Recap | Guides

Guides help you to structure your design and optimize your work based on elemental principles like symmetry, balance, and using perfect shapes to construct complex compositions.