How to Use the Silhouette Align Tool like a Pro (Silhouette Studio V4)

Did you ever create a beautiful design in Silhouette Studio, but struggle when it comes to making sure everything is properly aligned?

Eyeballing it NEVER works for me. Maybe you have better eyeballs than me, but I need the software to do the work for me and so I have gotten pretty familiar with the align tool. Today I'm going to share my tips with you so you can master the align tool, too.

The align tool can be found in two different place: along the Quick Access Toolbar (QAT) and from within the Transform Panel on the right toolbar.

Note: Accessing the Align Tool from the Quick Access toolbar is only possible when at least one item is selected in the work area. 

The Quick Access Align tool is slightly more limited than opening the full Align Tool Panel as you do not get the spacing options from the QAT.



For that reason we're going to focus on the Align Tool Panel, but know that everything is accessible from QAT with the exception of Horizontal and Vertical spacing - and the options work the same way.

The most common question I'm asked about aligning is how to get one design exactly in the center of another - evenly on all side. This is actually the easiest way to align.

The first thing you need to do is make sure that your 'inner' design (a three letter circle monogram in this case) is completely grouped.  To do this select the entire design > right click > group. You'll then have one bounding box around your grouped design.

Now select both the circle and the monogram. From the Align Tool window click the option to "Center." This puts the monogram exactly in the middle of the circle.  Easy peesy.

The reason it's important to group the monogram is because look what happens if you don't form the three letters as a group before you try to align...it actually centers each individual letter in the circle.

Grouping is key to aligning because it determines what will be aligned and how. As you can see there is a big difference between what is centered when it's grouped vs. not grouped.

Aligning top, bottom, left and right are pretty self explanatory.

Aligning a group of words or designs "horizontally in the center" means the middle of all of the words of designs will be centered on the vertical axis.  I find it easiest to look at the little icons instead of hovering over each one to see the description.

If you have a horizontal row of words that you want aligned so the middles are all lined up exactly, you want to align them vertically. (Kinda confusing...see why I prefer the icons?!)

Selecting all of the words and picking "align middle" from the Align Vertical window will move all of the words on the same horizontal axis.

But there's only one problem...you'll notice that in this example the words 'tool' and 'align' are closer together than the words 'helpful' and 'tool'.

To make the words each evenly spaced I keep them all selected and click "space horizontally."  You'll see that text shifts slightly to make sure there's an equal amount of space between each word while also keeping them aligned.

And one final note, Center to Page puts whatever you have selected in the exact middle of your work area.  Just be sure you have grouped everything properly before you do this or you'll have a big jumbled mess centered right smack in the middle of your work area.



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