Guide lines in the screen

You can add individual guide lines or guide line grids and align objects with them. Moreover, an arrangement of several guide lines can also be saved as a preset and be used again at any time later on.

Two aspects are covered in this topic:

Creating and using guide lines

Presets for guide lines

Creating and using guide lines

1. Right-click the location in the screen where the guide line is to appear and select Add guide lines.

2. In the dialog enter information about which guide lines are to be added:

3. Single guide line  ...check box Vertical or Horizontal. For position the click location has been entered. If you want the guide line to be somewhere else, enter the location as a percentage or in pixels.

4. Guide line grid ...check box Vertical and/or Horizontal and enter the grid spacing as a percentage or in pixels. For unsymmetrical grids in the screen enter an offset value.

3. Finally, click OK to add the guide lines.

• For single guide lines and percentages the origin refers to the center of the screen. Pixel values, however, have absolute character and the origin in that case is at the bottom left corner of the screen. The screen size in pixels refers to the output size defined in the screen properties. See also Screen Properties.

• The guide line color can be changed when adding a guide line or in the guide line properties. For this purpose uncheck box Default color and click the green color field, following which the color selection dialog opens up. See Details on color selection.

  For color specification color spaces RGB and HSB are available for selection. Grab one of the small squares in the corners with the mouse and drag it to choose the corresponding color. Field Old / New color allows you to compare the new color to the old one. Clicking on old color causes it to be displayed in the corresponding object, if live update is supported by the object. This way, a before/after comparison can be made. Selection of colors is particularly easy via the pipette. Click the Pipette and the mouse pointer takes the form of a pipette. Use it to click the corresponding color on the screen or somewhere in the program window. If you want to use your own standard colors for a project or want to use a particular colour several times, you can define a Custom colour. This is how you proceed: Select a color so that it becomes visible in field Old / New color on the right. Hold the Ctrl key pressed and click one of the squares in field Custom to save the corresponding color. All colors saved under Custom can directly be selected by clicking them. This selection of colors will also be available when the dialog is called up again.

• If you want to display or hide the guide lines temporarily, right-click the screen and select Display guide lines (changeover function).

• Single guide lines can be deleted by right-clicking the guide line and selecting Remove guide line. If you want to permanently delete all guide lines right-click the screen and select Delete all guide lines, following which all visible guide lines in the screen are deleted.

• If you want objects to snap to the guide lines during In-Screen Editing right-click the screen and select Snap to guide line. The same way the snap function can be disabled again.

Presets for guide lines

You can save your guide lines as presets and use them for various layouts at any time later on.

• Save such presets by right-clicking the screen and selecting Save guide lines as preset.... In the dialog enter a name and click OK. When a preset is loaded in the screen the name of such a preset is listed automatically and can be overwritten. Otherwise you just enter a new name.

• A preset is loaded by right-clicking the screen, clicking Load guide line preset and selecting the corresponding preset. You can load several presets and add one after the other while pressing the Ctrl key.

• A preset can be deleted by right-clicking the screen, clicking Remove guide line preset followed by choosing the preset to be removed.

• Presets for guide lines can be imported from other projects by right-clicking the screen and selecting Import guide lines ... In the dialog select the corresponding project and click Open.

You can also add guide lines in the timeline at markers if you click the right button in the track head of a marker track. See also Marker.