Using the grid, guides, and rulers

Flash comes with rulers and guides that help you draw and lay out objects precisely. You can place guides in a document and snap objects to those guides, or turn on the grid and snap objects to it.

Note: You can also snap objects to other objects or to pixels, or align objects using specified snap tolerance boundaries. See Snapping.

Using the grid

When the grid is displayed in a document, it appears as a set of lines behind the artwork in all scenes. You can snap objects to the grid, and you can modify the grid size and grid line color.

To display or hide the drawing grid:

Select View > Grid > Show Grid.

To turn snapping to grid lines on or off:

Select View > Snapping > Snap to Grid.

To set grid preferences:

Select View > Grid > Edit Grid.
For Color, click the triangle in the color box and select a grid line color from the palette.
The default grid line color is gray.
Select or deselect Show Grid to display or hide the grid.
Select or deselect Snap to Grid to turn snapping to grid lines on or off.
For grid spacing, enter values in the text boxes to the right of the horizontal and vertical arrows.
For Snap Accuracy, select an option from the pop-up menu.
If you want to save the current settings as the default, click Save Default.

Using guides

You can drag horizontal and vertical guides from the rulers onto the Stage when the rulers are displayed. You can move guides, lock guides, hide guides, and remove guides. You can also snap objects to guides, and change guide color and snap tolerance (how close objects must be to snap to a guide). Draggable guides appear only in the Timeline in which they were created.

You can clear all the guides in the current editing mode—document-editing mode or symbol-editing mode. If you clear guides in document-editing mode, all the guides in the document are cleared. If you clear guides in symbol-editing mode, all the guides in all symbols are cleared.

To create custom guides or irregular guides, you use guide layers. See Using guide layers.

To display or hide the drawing guides:

Select View > Guides > Show Guides.
Note: If the grid is visible and Snap to Grid is turned on when you create guides, guides will snap to the grid.

To turn snapping to guides on or off:

Select View > Snapping > Snap to Guides.
Note: Snapping to guides takes precedence over snapping to the grid in places where guides fall between grid lines.

To move a guide:

Use the Arrow tool to drag the guide.

To remove a guide:

With guides unlocked, use the Arrow tool to drag the guide to the horizontal or vertical ruler. For information on locking and unlocking guides, see the following procedure.

To lock guides:

Select View > Guides > Lock Guides.
Note: You can also use the Lock Guides option in the Guides preferences dialog box. See the following procedure.

To set guide preferences:

Select View > Guides > Edit Guides and do any of the following:
- For Color, click the triangle in the color box and select a guide line color from the palette. The default guide color is green.
- Select or deselect Show Guides to display or hide guides.
- Select or deselect Snap to Guides to turn snapping to guides on or off.
- Select or deselect Lock Guides to lock or unlock guides.
- For Snap Accuracy, select an option from the pop-up menu.
- If you want to remove all guides, click Clear All.
- Clear All removes all guides from the current scene.
- If you want to save the current settings as the default, click Save Default.
Click OK.

To clear guides:

Select View > Guides > Clear Guides.
If you are in edit document mode, all guides in the document are cleared. If you are in edit symbols mode, only guides used in symbols are cleared.

Using rulers

When rulers are displayed, they appear along the top and left sides of the document. You can change the unit of measure used in the rulers from the default of pixels. When you move an element on the Stage with the rulers displayed, lines indicating the element's dimensions appear on the rulers.