How to Avoid InDesign Smart Guides Problems

Mike Rankin

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InDesign’s Smart Guides are (usually) a wonderful thing. They let you arrange and align objects in your layout precisely without ever having to spend time fussing with rulers, page guides, or the Control panel. But sometimes Smart Guides can act pretty dumb. In particular, you can see InDesign Smart Guides Problems when you aren’t careful about the size and position of page objects. When that happens, you’ll have trouble aligning objects because they’ll try to snap to everything but the thing you intend.

Smart Guides also take master page items into account. So be careful when you’re setting up frames for things like running headers and footers.

Smart Guides Problems

For example, when you’re drawing a new frame (or moving an existing one), you might want to quickly snap it to a column edge. But if you have Smart Guides turned on, and other page items are in the vicinity, the selected frame might snap to them before it snaps to the column edge.

Likewise, if you’re sloppy about arranging frames (and the content within them), you can have trouble snapping to the centers of things like placed images and columns.

 Solution 1: Toggle Smart Guides Off

If you’re trying to snap to a column edge, page edge, or page guide, you don’t need Smart Guides, so turn them off temporarily when they get in your way. You can quickly turn off Smart Guides with the keyboard shortcut, Command/Ctrl+U. As long as Snap to Guides is still enabled, you’ll have no problem snapping to something like a column edge. Then, if desired, press Command/Ctrl+U to turn Smart Guides back on.

Note that on the Mac you can also leave Smart Guides turned off and invoke them on the fly by dragging and item, then holding the Ctrl key as you continue to drag.

 Solution 2: Adjust the Document View

Another fix is to simply zoom or scroll to show just the items you’re working with in the document window. When the whole page is visible, then every edge and center of every frame is a potential Smart Guide. But if you move most of the objects out of view, you’ll have a much cleaner path to the snap that you want.

 Solution 3: Approach From a Different Angle

If you run into traffic while moving a page item, take an alternate route. For example, if you’re dragging an item from left to right and it keeps bumping into Smart Guides, try moving the item to the other side of the screen and coming from right to left.

 Solution 4: Clean up the Layout

It pays to be tidy as you work, especially when you’re setting up master page items. Pay attention to their size and position. Have them match the width of columns if appropriate. Don’t place items that are almost aligned on your master pages. And don’t leave unused items hanging around. Usually it only takes a few seconds of effort to create a more user-friendly layout, and avoid annoying smart guides problems.