Use rulers and guides

Rulers help you accurately place and measure objects in the Captivate Classic design window. The point where 0 appears on each ruler is the ruler origin, which is the upper-left corner of the design window.

To show or hide rulers, choose View > Show Rulers or View> Hide Rulers.

Change the unit of measurement

The unit of measurement available in a non-responsive project is pixels. In responsive projects, the default unit of measurement is percent. 

To change the unit of measurement in a responsive project, right-click the ruler in a responsive project and select your preferred unit. 

You cannot change your unit of measurement in a non-responsive project.

Use guides

Guides help you align text and graphic objects. In Captivate Classic, you can create ruler guides (straight horizontal or vertical lines). 

You can change the default color of guides. For more information, see Change the appearance of guides.

By default, guides are unlocked so that you can move, modify, delete, or revert them, but you can choose to lock them into place.

For more information on:

• Deleting or moving guides, see Move or delete guides.
• Locking or unlocking guides, see Lock or unlock guides.
• Snapping objects to guides, see Snap objects to guides.

Create guides

You can create guides both on stage and off stage (using the menu) in different ways.

Creating guides on stage

Create guides easily on stage using the following methods:

Drag and create guides

Double click and create guides

From existing guides

Create guides off stage

You can create a grid at one go, or add guides individually to your Captivate Classic design area.

Create guides individually

A new guide is created.

Creating multiple guides

You can create a set of evenly spaced guides at one go.

A set of guides is created on the stage.

Move or delete guides

To move a guide, drag it.

To delete a single guide:

Right-click the guide and select Delete Guide.

To delete or clear all guides:

Choose View > Clear Guides.

Lock or unlock guides

To lock or unlock all guides, choose View > Lock Guides to select or deselect the menu command.

Change the appearance of guides

To change the appearance of guides, do the following:

Use smart guides

Smart Guides are temporary snap‑to guides that appear when you create or manipulate objects. They help you align, edit, and transform objects relative to other objects, or by snap-aligning them to guides on the screen.

To turn Smart Guides on or off, check or uncheck View > Show Drawing/Smart Guides .

Guides: Property flow in responsive projects

The behavior of guides is the same as the behavior of any other object in responsive projects.

You can add or delete guides in lower breakpoints, and it is reflected in all the views (both high and low). However, if you edit a guide in a lower breakpoint, its link with higher views is broken. 

From an expert: