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Full Alignment Center Option (both horizontally and vertically)

Instead of having two tools (Horizontal and Vertical Align Center), can we get a tool that does both in one called something like Fully Align Center. I've included an image of what the tool might look like.

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Jordan shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
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  • Drew commented  ·   ·  Report

    @jason Burnett - I didn't understand any of that, sorry! One button to rule them all (so to speak!) works for me. If you already align centre/middle another way, that's great. When it comes to designing, for me at least, it's about having as frictionless a workflow as possible, and always having to select 2 objects, THEN selecting the one you want to align it to, THEN having to hit align centre and THEN align middle = too many steps when you have a lot of that to do... so one button to cut out a bit of the middle man is A-OK :)

  • Jason Burnett commented  ·   ·  Report

    Please consider using an Align By matrix for dual axis alignment. You don't need a new button for Center/Middle alignment any more than you need a button for Top/Left alignment or Bottom/Right alignment.

    We are already familiar with the Transform Point. Use that same paradigm for dual axis alignment. If you want to align by the Center Middle, pick that point to align by.

    This immediately makes it clear that you can do dual axis alignment with one button by any of the 9 well known reference points.

    Not only that, but it will open the door to the extremely useful new paradigm in Illustrator alignment where you have your alignBy reference point and your alignTo reference Point.

    Then, all alignment looks like this: Align [selection] by [alignBy] to [destination] by [alignTo]

    With this one simple change in alignment metaphors, you suddenly open up the opportunity to align an element by it's middle right position to another elements' middle left position super easily.

  • Drew commented  ·   ·  Report

    Works perfectly, great icon for it too - my only extra beg is that the order of the align tools can be amended, so I can drag them into an order that works for ease of use :)

    New idea from comment
    This comment was upgraded into a new idea: Allow to reposition buttons in the Align panel
  • Drew commented  ·   ·  Report

    Guys, it's 2026! PLEASE can we have an align button added that vertically AND horizontally aligns in one hit, instead of having to click one and then the other to align things centrally? It's really time consuming to do this if you have a lot of assets that need aligning.

  • Jeremy commented  ·   ·  Report

    PLEEEEEEASE support this in the scripting DOM, which always seems to need some attention to bring it up to date.

  • Sergey Osokin commented  ·   ·  Report

    I wonder if the Illustrator team will add support for calling this center alignment command in scripts, as they have done for other Align commands: app.executeMenuCommand("Horizontal Align Left")

  • AdminEgor Chistyakov (Admin, Adobe Illustrator) commented  ·   ·  Report

    The added button is good, but also is just terribly positioned.
    Here, I hovered over each Align button to mark the hit areas.
    Why isn’t it in the middle? Why does its hitbox cover the next one, Align Top?
    Why aren’t these carefully redistributed, like the second mockup image shows?

    Why not in the Control also?
    Why not in Properties? (ah, right, there’s not enough space, because the Align To is a dropdown button there instead of three buttons).
    Why not in the top menu?

    Why does the action recorded with this command have a blank name, compared to existing ones?

    (Edited by admin)
  • Jean-Michel Le Goff commented  ·   ·  Report

    It should also valuable if pattern shapes become smart rules and active helpers like it is for glyphs.
    It may help to place more precisely patterns in a shape.

  • AdminEgor Chistyakov (Admin, Adobe Illustrator) commented  ·   ·  Report

    I know two workflows to make this happen.

    First.
    1. Enable smart guides
    2. Grab the intersection of the rulers (the zero point) and drag it over the center of your object (assuming there is one, you can enable it in Attributes panel with Show Center), or to a chosen point on canvas. If your pattern is built with its center in the center of its module, this should effectively center the module in the object.
    3. Cut the shape
    4. Reset coordinates (or return them to their original position in cases you were not using the default zero). Make sure you have Transform Pattern Tiles option enabled in Preferences!
    5. Paste the object
    Now you have the pattern centered.
    Just watch the GIF.

    Second.
    Use a free script instead — Reset Pattern.jsx by Toshiyuki Takahashi (gau)
    Download it from here: https://github.com/gau/reset-pattern

    (Edited by admin)
  • geoff commented  ·   ·  Report

    I can't believe we are still waiting for this. Same as Eliel said below. Every version that comes out I just want this tool. Add it to the Align Palette. IT's a box with a line going through horizontally AND vertically. Yay done!

  • Patrick commented  ·   ·  Report

    Would it possible to make the align tool Center an object to Canvas if only one shape is selected? Adobe XD does this and it feels intuitive and saves a lot of time. Also it would be nice if the "align to selection", "align to key object", and "align to canvas" options could be either all three visible in the panel or a toggle button. Clicking on the drop down and then moving the mouse down to switch them is killing my wrist. I often go back and forth between aligning selections and aligning to canvas.

    Thank you,
    Patrick

  • Matt Tedeschi commented  ·   ·  Report

    I think you're asking for the same thing I came to add. Whenever you change the dimensions of the application, say full screen/monitor or half of your screen, the content doesn't re-center automatically.

    Ctrl + 0
    Ctrl + 1

    Work for now. But that's a nice illustration you have there.

    Thanks

  • Eliel Almonte commented  ·   ·  Report

    Add an option on the align panel to do both vertical and horizontal alignment at once! Currently I have to selected them individually.

  • Anonymous commented  ·   ·  Report

    Such an obvious idea, with such an easy implementation!

  • Collin commented  ·   ·  Report

    See attachment... very simple fix. Why is it taking so long to get this simple tool into Adobe illustrator.

  • Mike Gondek commented  ·   ·  Report

    Would be nice to add an icon that centers both axis instead of having to click twice for horizontal and vertical.

Illustrator (Desktop) Feature Requests: Align, Distribute

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