Comments on: Illustrator: Align objects without moving one of the objects

By: tomaugerdotcom

tomaugerdotcom — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 19:57:14 +0000

Well done, sir! You know, just proves that it’s helpful to review the docs, even after using the same software for 20 years…

Select the objects to align or distribute. To align an anchor point on the object, use the Direct Selection tool and select the anchor point.
In the Align panel or Control panel, do any of the following:
To align or distribute relative to the bounding box of all selected objects, click the button for the type of alignment or distribution you want.
To align or distribute relative to one of the selected objects, click that object again (you don’t need to hold down Shift as you click this time). Then click the button for the type of alignment or distribution you want.
Note: To stop aligning and distributing relative to an object, choose Cancel Key Object from the Align panel menu.

By: M109RRIDER

M109RRIDER — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 15:23:28 +0000

Thank you very much! This was starting to drive me insane.

By: wasser

wasser — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:40:03 +0000

Great! Thanks for preventing headaches!

By: dre

dre — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 19:28:51 +0000

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

By: Dima

Dima — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 19:11:00 +0000

I swear I was going go find a bridge. In photoshop 7.0 it’s very easy, the first object you select automatically serves as “key object” – I almost thought that Adobe decided to get rid of that feature. Great that I came across your post.

By: the illest

the illest — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:56:29 +0000

thanks!!

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:43:06 +0000

You’d be amazed how many times I googled this and found nothing before I just tried the plain English phrase “center align without moving one object”. THANK YOU!

By: Sydyh

Sydyh — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:53:37 +0000

Awesome! I’ve been struggling with this for so long. Thanks!

By: Rolando

Rolando — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:49:35 +0000

So much of Adobe Illustrator feels like arcane hand magic… Thanks for the demystification!

By: Arvid

Arvid — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:57:45 +0000

Great tip! Saves lots of frustration.

But why is there no indication of how this works (or which object is the key object, even after you have selected one) in the interface? (at least not version 10. I understand that is really old, so maybe newer versions have some visual indication of this)