Aligning Objects
It is only possible to align objects that form part of a group. Objects within a group can be aligned vertically or horizontally using the sub menu Transform->Justify.
Note that alignment is not recursive: if a group contains another group, the contents of the sub group will not be aligned, each element in the sub group will be moved by the same amount.
- Transform->Justify->Left
- Move all objects
within the group so that the left edge of each object's
bounding box lies along the left edge of the group's bounding box.
(See Figure 8.28(b).)
- Transform->Justify->Centre
- Move all objects within the group so that they are centred horizontally
within the group's bounding box.
(See Figure 8.28(c).)
- Transform->Justify->Right
- Move all objects
within the group so that the right edge of each object's
bounding box lies along the right edge of the group's
bounding box.
(See Figure 8.28(d).)
- Transform->Justify->Top
- Move all objects within
the group so that the top of each object's bounding box lies along the
top of the group's bounding box.
- Transform->Justify->Middle
- Move all objects within the group so that they are centred vertically
within the group's bounding box.
- Transform->Justify->Bottom
- Move all objects within the group so that the bottom of each object's bounding box lies along the bottom of the group's bounding box.
If the Auto Adjust Anchor checkbox in the TeX Configuration Settings Dialog is selected, any text areas that are contained in a group that is justified will automatically have their anchors changed. For example, in Figure 8.28 one of the objects is a text area. If the auto anchor update facility is enabled, the text area in Figure 8.28(b) will have its horizontal anchor changed to Left, in Figure 8.28(c) it will have its horizontal anchor changed to Centre and in Figure 8.28(d) it will have its horizontal anchor changed to Right. Similarly, applying a vertical alignment will change the vertical anchor to one of: Top, Centre or Bottom. Note that there is no way of aligning text areas along their baseline.8.3
|
Tip: Sometimes you might want to centre an object relative to another thinner object. In this case it's better to create a rectangle centred on the thin object that encompasses all the objects you want to justify. Include this rectangle in the group, justify, ungroup and then delete the rectangle. For example, the image shown in Figure 8.29(a) has a text area below the middle line. It would look better if the text was centred below the line, so I grouped the middle line and text area and justified them using Transform->Justify->Centre. The result is shown in Figure 8.29(b). Although the text and line are now centred relative to each other, the line was moved to the centre of the text area, not the other way round. This was not what was intended. Instead, in Figure 8.29(c), I created a new rectangle that is centred on the line. Since the line is on a tick mark and the grid lock is on, it is relatively easy to create this rectangle (much easier than trying to move the text area to manually align it). I then grouped the rectangle, the middle line and the text area and justified them using Transform->Justify->Centre. The result is shown in Figure 8.29(d). The justified objects were then ungrouped and the rectangle was deleted to produced Figure 8.29(e).
See also:
Footnotes
- ... baseline.8.3
- However it is possible that the baseline may coincide with the bottom of the text area if the text area doesn't contain any characters with descenders.