Page 93 - Xara Designer Pro X17

Object Handling 93

This shows a coarse grid with 5 subdivisions between major divisions. The shape has a very
thick gray outline. Because the object has been dragged down and to the left, the lower and
left outside edges are snapped to the nearest grid point.

Note: The default grid spacing is 50 pixel spacing for major grid lines with 50
subdivisions. This means the grid is spaced at exactly one screen pixel and so may
appear not to be working at a normal 100% zoom. If you zoom in to say 500% then you
can see it does snap correctly.

Alternatively, change the grid values to have, say, 10 subdivisions which means that the
grid points are on 5 pixel boundaries.

Snapping and line widths
The SCALE LINE WIDTHS control on the SELECTOR TOOL
InfoBar affects whether snapping happens to the bounds of
objects including their outlines.
The above example shows a shape with a very thick gray outline. It also shows (thin
black line) the outline of the shape itself (you can see the thick outline is drawn equally
on either side of the center line so that it partly overlaps the inside of the shape and
partially goes outside).
With scale line widths on, the width of the outline is deemed to be important and so ‘snap
to grid’ will snap the bounds of objects, including outlines, to the grid. Snap to objects will
allow you to snap using the bounds or the outline center lines. If the outlines as they
appear on screen are small, so there is little difference between these two snapping
positions, bounds snaps are favored. So zoom in if you want to snap outline centers in
this case.

With scale line widths off, ‘snap to grid’ and ‘snap to objects’ will snap the center lines of
objects, ignoring the outline widths.

Because snapping honors the Scale line widths switch it means that the bounds used by
snapping are always the same bounds that are reported in the SELECTOR TOOL InfoBar.

Magnetic object snapping (snap to objects)
Magnetic object snapping makes it much easier to accurately position objects relative to
each other or relative to the page center or edges.
So, for example, if you want several lines to start at exactly the same point, or want a line
to exactly join the edge of a circle, then using "magnetic object snap" is useful.

You can even use this to align the centers of objects, or align objects to the center of the
page, or align them horizontally and vertically anywhere in the middle of the page.

Magnetic snapping works when either moving or scaling objects using the SELECTOR
TOOL.