Storyline 3: Setting Grid, Guide, and Ruler Preferences

Storyline 3 has a design grid, drawing guides, and a ruler to make it easier to position and align objects in your project.

• Displaying the Design Grid
• Changing Your Grid Settings
• Working with Drawing Guides
• Displaying the Ruler

Displaying the Design Grid

The design grid is a series of horizontal and vertical dotted lines that display on your slide while you're editing. The grid won't appear in your published output; it's only visible while you're building slides. Here's an example of what the grid looks like on a slide.

To show the design grid, do any of the following:

• Press Shift+F9 on your keyboard.
• Go to the View tab on the ribbon and mark the Gridlines box.
• Select any object, go to the Home tab, click Arrange, scroll to Align, and choose View Gridlines.
• Select any object, go to the Format tab, click Align, and choose View Gridlines.
• Right-click anywhere in the slide workspace and choose Grid and Guides. Mark the box to Display grid on screen and click OK.

Changing Your Grid Settings

To set your preferences for the way gridlines display, use the Grid and Guides window. To open the Grid and Guides window, do any of the following:

• Go to the View tab and click the small arrow in the lower right corner of the Show group.
• Select any object, go to the Home tab, click Arrange, scroll to Align, and choose Grid Settings.
• Select any object, go to the Format tab, click Align, and choose Grid Settings.
• Right-click anywhere in the slide workspace and choose Grid and Guides.

Here are the options you can set on the Grid and Guides window:

Snap options	Mark either or both of these boxes to force objects to snap to the gridlines or snap to other objects when you rearrange them on a slide. When these options are enabled, you can still move an object without snapping it by holding down the Alt key while dragging the object. This temporarily disables snapping. When you release the Alt key, the snap function will resume.
Spacing	Enter a value (in pixels) for grid spacing, or use the arrows to increase/decrease the value.
Display grid on screen	Use this box to turn the grid on or off.
Display drawing guides on screen	Drawing guides are lines that you add to your slide to help align objects. They won't appear in your published output; they're only visible when you're editing slides. See the next section in this user guide for more information on adding, adjusting, and removing guides.
Display smart guides when shapes are aligned	Smart guides are temporary visual guidelines that appear when you're moving objects around and two objects come into alignment with each other. They disappear as soon as you release your mouse button to drop an object into place. Mark the box if you want them to appear. Uncheck it if you don't want to use smart guides.
Set as Default	Click this button to use the same settings in other projects.

Working with Drawing Guides

Drawing guides help you align objects. Drawing guides won't appear in your published output. They're only visible when you're building slides.

You can turn drawing guides on by marking the box to Display drawing guides on screen on the Grid and Guides window shown above. Another way to enable drawing guides is to go to the View tab on the ribbon and mark the Guides box.

When drawing guides are first enabled, two centered guidelines (one horizontal and one vertical) will appear on your slide. You can add more guidelines and move them around the slide.

To create a new guide	To add another drawing guide, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking and dragging an existing guide. The existing guide will remain where it is, but a new one will appear where you drag. Release your mouse button when the guide is in the position you want.
To move a guide	Click and drag a guide to move it. An arrow will appear, showing the number of pixels you've moved the guide. Positive numbers indicate a rightward or upward movement (relative to the center of the slide), and negative numbers indicate leftward or downward movement.
To delete a guide	To delete a guide, drag and drop it on top of another guide.

Displaying the Ruler

The ruler is another handy alignment tool. It makes common tasks easier, such as drawing shapes and positioning drawing guides. When the ruler is enabled, it appears on the top and left edges of your slide workspace. When you move your mouse or drawing tool around the slide, its movement is traced on the ruler.

To turn the ruler on or off, do either of the following:

• Go to the View tab on the ribbon and mark the Ruler box.
• Right-click anywhere in your slide workspace and choose Ruler.