Guidelines on a Graphic

Guidelines are horizontal or vertical, non-printing lines dragged onto a graphic and used to position or align elements precisely and symmetrically. Guidelines are similar to gridlines in that they appear at certain intervals, but they also differ because you can place them anywhere you want on the canvas.

Snap

As with gridlines, the snap feature works with guidelines. With snap, your drawing elements are attracted, and attach themselves, to the nearest guideline you drag them toward—much like metal objects are drawn toward a magnet. This makes it easier to create an accurate graphic.

If snap is enabled, only the top left corner of the drawing element snaps to the guideline. If snap is disabled, all four corners are active, and any one of them will snap to a guideline.

By pressing and holding the SHIFT key while the snap feature is enabled, you can drag a drawing element near or over a guideline without activating snap, which gives you additional positioning choices on the canvas.

Layout

To precisely position the guidelines on the selected graphic, you can enter a numeric value for the X and Y axis. You can also choose to hide or display the guidelines, as well as lock or unlock them. Locking a guideline anchors it in its current position so that you do not accidentally drag it when moving other elements on the canvas.

Colors

You can change the color of the guideline by entering a hexadecimal color code, such as FFFF0000 (red), or by entering the name of a color from the list of HTML Literal Word Colors. Additionally, you can reference a state text color defined in the corresponding Text Group of the associated data point, using the following syntax: TxG_[TextGroupName].[Value]. The syntax is case sensitive. TextGroups are found in the Libraries folders and configured in the Text Group Editor.

Stroke

Two additional settings are available to allow you to customize the appearance of the guidelines—Stroke Thickness and Stroke Dash Array. Stroke Thickness refers to the width of the guideline, and Stroke Dash Array refers to the length of the dash and the space between the dashes (the gap) that comprise the guideline.

Additional Guideline Features

• Guideline settings are saved with the graphic.
• Guideline settings are unique for every graphic.
• Guidelines are visible only in Design and Test modes.
• Guidelines can be added, moved and deleted.
• Guideline colors are customizable.
• Guideline stroke and thickness does not change with different zoom factors.