Adobe Creative Cloud Design Tools All-in-One For Dummies

Chapter 7: Organizing Your Illustrations

In This Chapter

• Using rulers
• Using ruler and custom guides
• Working with the Transform panel for placement
• Changing ruler origin
• Rearranging, hiding, and locking objects
• Masking objects

You can know about all the neat special effects in Illustrator, but if you have no strong organization skills, you can become exasperated when things just don't work as you expect them to. In this chapter, we focus on a few organizational tricks of the trade.

Setting Ruler Increments

Using rulers to help accurately place objects in an illustration sounds simple (and it is), but not knowing how to effectively use the rulers in Illustrator can drive you over the edge.

To view rulers in Illustrator, choose ViewRulersShow Rulers or press Ctrl+R (Windows) or +R (Mac). When the rulers appear, their default measurement setting is the point (or whichever measurement increment was last set up in the preferences).

To change the ruler increment to the measurement system you prefer, use one of these methods:

• Create a new document and select a measurement unit in the New Document dialog box.
• Right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac) the horizontal or vertical ruler and ...