Tutorial
Set Up Page Guides

The first way you learned to position an object on a page in Sahafi was by using a grid with Snap To chosen. The second way you learned was by turning Snap To off and then using the rulers to position the bottom-right corner of the picture block. Now you'll learn a third way to position an object with precision, by snapping to row and column guides on your individual pages.
There are two sets of guides available to you in Sahafi: layout guides and row and column guides. A layout guide is a set of guides that is set up on the master pages, when you choose the Guides command. Layout guides appear on every page of the document. You create row or column guides on the pages of your document as you need to. In this section, you'll learn how to create row and column guides. Row and column guides are nonprinting, horizontal or vertical guidelines that help you position objects on your pages. You can snap objects to them much as you do with a grid, but they work slightly differently.

  1. Scroll the page so that its top left corner is near the top left corner of the document window.

  2. Choose Guides from the Page menu. The grid disappears and Sahafi's preset guides appear on the page, marking a margin on all sides and two columns that are separated by 1 pica and 6 points of space.

You can't work with both the grid and guides at the same time, but you can use the grid and guides alternately to align objects on a page in different ways. When you set up a grid, it appears on every page in your document. Guides are different. You can set up a layout guide on master pages with the Guides Setup command. The layout guide, comprised of a set of horizontal and vertical guides, appears on every page of your document in much the same way as when you set up a custom grid. But you can also set up individual row and column guides for just one page, by dragging from the ruler.

  1. Choose Display Master from the Page menu to turn off the master page guides. Sahafi's master guides are removed from the page.

  2. Position the pointer inside the vertical ruler, press the mouse button, and drag the pointer out of the ruler and to the right. A dotted vertical line appears under the pointer when you drag it onto the pasteboard. The pointer becomes a two-headed arrow to indicate that you are positioning a guide. The status bar indicates the distance of the guide from the left edge of the page, in picas and points. Negative numbers indicate that the guide is to the left of the left edge of the page. Positive numbers indicate that the guide is to the right of the left edge of the page.

  3. Drag the guide just inside the left edge of the page and when the status bar reads 1.06, release the mouse button. A column guide appears, 1 pica and 6 points inside the left edge of the page. You can create a row guide in much the same way. But when you do, negative numbers in the status bar indicate the distance of the guide above the top edge of the page, and positive numbers indicate the guide's distance below the top edge of the page.

  4. Create a row guide 3 picas below the top edge of the page, by dragging a guide out of the horizontal ruler and gauging its position with the vertical ruler and the status bar. A row guide appears, 3 picas below the top of the page.

Unlike a grid, which forces objects to snap to it no matter how far they are from the nearest grid rectangle, guides only cause objects to snap to them when they are within a certain distance. You can specify the distance within which objects will snap to a guide.

  1. Choose Preferences/General from the Document menu. The General Preferences dialog box appears. The current Snap-To Strength is displayed in the Rulers and Guides area. It's preset to 5 pixels.

  2. Press the Tab until the Snap-To Strength distance is selected and type 12.

  3. Click OK.

Now when the guides are active, the edge of any object you create, move, or resize will snap to a guide if it's within 12 pixels. A pixel is the same size as a point. So with a Snap-To Strength of 12 pixels, any object will snap to a guide within 12 points, or 1 pica. Though you turned Snap To off when you resized the picture block, Snap To is turned on automatically whenever you choose Grid or Guides from the Page menu.