Indesign align

by Design Workshop Sydney

After importing several images or logos into an Indesign layout you may wish to align and distribute them evenly across a page, as in the example shown here. We demonstrate how in our Adobe Indesign courses.Print
First of all, make sure that the first and last items are in their correct positions, probably aligned to the closest margins.
Then select all the images you wish to align. Note as you do so the Align & Distribute icons will appear on the top right of your interface. These usually do the trick, however there’s no option for aligning spacing between the items.
For this you need to go to the Window drop-down menu and choose Object & Layout > Align. The Align & Distribute panel will open on your screen, displaying a few more handy options for arranging the icons or images. Experiment with a few of them, but the ones we want initially are Align Top Edges, and Distribute Horizontal Centres. At first this looks right, but notice that the spaces between items can sometimes be uneven. This is because the centres are equally spaced out, but the varying widths means that the spaces between them will vary.
Therefore, click on the Options flyout button and choose More Options. Then choose Equally Distribute Spacing. Note you can also choose to spread them out between the first and last selected, or between the margins or the page edges. The choice is an aesthetic one; it’s up to you. Note that another option is to determine the size of the spacing, for example 10mm.
Finally it’s a good idea to right-click on one of the items and choose Group. This will keep the items together in case you need to move them or scale them as one unit.
More tips can be found at the Sydney Indesign User Group which meets regularly in the city, and is a free forum for designers to discuss topics and the latest Indesign features. See many examples of our own clients’ work on our Facebook page.
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