Set Up Guides in Adobe InDesign

Try all of these Options for setting guides

There are multiple ways to create and modify margin, column, and ruler guides in Adobe InDesign. These tips only discuss options for guides and do not specifically address document and baseline grids.

• Specify top, bottom, left, and right margin guides and column guides in the New Document dialog box.

• Change margin and column guides after a document is created by choosing Layout > Margins and Columns.

• After setting the column guides, change them to columns with unequal width by dragging the column guides on the page.

• In order to set a ruler guide, click and hold the cursor over the horizontal or vertical ruler and drag a ruler guide to the desired position. Release the mouse to drop the ruler guide into place.

• Hold down Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Win) while dragging a guide to have it extend across the current spread and the pasteboard.

• Another way to create a ruler guide is to double-click at any point on the ruler to create a guide at that point.

• To keep from accidently repositioning all guides after you have them where you want them, choose View > Lock Guides or press Command+Option+; (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+; (Windows).

• To lock an individual ruler guide in place, press Command+L (Mac) or Ctrl+L (Windows) or choose Lock Position from the Context menu.

• Select a ruler guide by clicking on it with any of the selection tools.

• Select a ruler guide by dragging a selection rectangle over the guide or a group of guides, just as you would with other objects. However, if the selection rectangle touches an object, the object will be selected and not the guides. InDesign will not select both objects and ruler guides in the same selection.

• To move a single guide: drag the guide using the selection tools; select the guide then enter a new position in the X/Y fields of the Transform palette; select the guide and use the arrow keys to nudge the guide.

• To move multiple guides at once on the same page, shift-click on any group of guides you want to move and drag them to a new location.

• To copy guides to another page of a publication, select any guides and copy them then paste them onto another page.

More
Types of guides | View guides | Use guides

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