Accessing the Alignment Option in Affinity Designer

In Affinity Designer, the option to align elements becomes an important tool in designing. It creates a more efficient workflow that takes the guesswork out of aligning your design. So let’s dive in as we show you how to access and use the Alignment option for the best results.

Step 1 - Open or Create your Design

Click on Affinity Designer to open the program. Then either open your selected design or create a new one. If you are using a purchased SVG, be sure to check out how to use SVG files in Affinity Designer.

For this tutorial we used three of the Shape Tools to create our shapes. As you can see, the shapes are not aligned.

You can also use the Pen tool to create your designs.

Step 2 - Access and Use the Alignment Tool

You can quickly access the alignment tools on the top toolbar. Use the Move Tool to select all of the elements by clicking + dragging out a bounding box. Then use one of the options in the toolbar to align.

For further options click the Alignment tool, also found at the top toolbar.

Next, in the Alignment menu click on the Align Center for the Align Horizontally option. Now, the elements will align depending on the Align to section. This section will only become available once you have aligned the elements.

Selection Bounds - this aligns to the top, bottom or sides of the bounding box.

Spread - this will align to the top, bottom or center of the canvas document.

Margins - the elements will align to the margins setup. Margins can be accessed by going to File > Document Setup > Margins.

First Selected - your shapes will align according to the first selected shape.

Last Selected - your shapes will align according to the last selected shape.

To undo the alignment, just click on the option you used to deactivate it.

The last option for each alignment is to Space out either Horizontally or Vertically. In this case, as we have aligned Horizontally, we clicked on the Space Vertically button. This will create even spacing vertically between shapes.

The Align to is not available for the spacing options. You will see that Auto Distribute, which is ticked, will now become active. When ticked, Affinity Designer will automatically calculate the spacing. If you un-tick this box, you can input the value you want.

You can select options for Horizontally and Vertically at the same time. We have both the Align Center Horizontally and Space Vertically activated.

You can also access the Alignment tools by going to Layer > Alignment then selecting an option.

Step 3 - Customize the Alignment Toolbar

The top toolbar can be customized according to your requirements. To do this go to View > Customize Toolbar and a new window will open. Here you will find additional tools that can be added.

We added the Distribute options to the top toolbar. We did this by clicking + dragging the toolbar from the Customize Toolbar window. Then placing it on the top toolbar. Click Close once you are done.

You can also remove the quick access toolbars if they become too crowded. Simply open the Customize Toolbar window then click + drag a toolbar off and away from the top toolbar. You can drag it anywhere on the document, once you release your mouse it will be removed.

Individual tools can also be added to the top toolbar from the Customize Toolbar window. Just click + drag the selected tools onto the toolbar as before.

There we go, now you know how to use Affinity Designer’s align features. The Alignment option can be a very powerful editing tool for any designer. We hope that you can take what you have learned today and apply it to your designs.