- [Voiceover] In this movie,
I'll show you how to use the alignment options
as precise positioning tools.
So, just to set things up here,
I'm gonna press Shift + Tab in order
to hide the right side panels,
and then I'll go up to the View menu
and choose Fit All in Window,
or you can press Control + Alt + zero,
or Command + Option + zero on a Mac,
in order to reveal these letters,
over here in the left hand artboard.
And so what we're gonna do,
is move every single one of the letters
to the proper position, and we're gonna do so
without dragging a single one of them.
We're gonna be relying exclusively
on the alignment and distribution options.
So notice here that this text is set in a font
called Zebrawood, that I have converted to path outlines,
and so what we have is this outline,
which is the regular style,
as well as this color which is the fill style.
And so what I've done is combine the border
and the fill into groups,
for every single one of the letters except this E.
And so I'll just go ahead and press Control + Z
or Command + Z on a Mac a couple of times
to put those guys back where they were.
And I'll marquee these two paths right here,
one of which is a compound path,
and then I'll just go up to the Object menu
and choose the Group command, or of course
you can press Control + G or Command + G on a Mac.
And that's gonna be essential that these guys
are grouped together, if we want to move
the border and the fill as one unit.
Alright, so the first thing I'm gonna do
is click on this nine to select it,
and then I'll Shift + click on this upper left square.
But, I forgot that these guys are grouped together,
so I'm gonna have to start things off
by marqueeing all the squares like so,
and then going up to the Object menu and choosing
the Ungroup command in order to break up all of the groups.
Alright now I'll try that again.
I'll go ahead and click on the nine,
and Shift + click on the square.
And then, you wanna click on the square again.
Don't double click on it, cause then you'll enter
the Isolation mode which is not what you want.
Just give it a moment and click on it a second time
in order to make it the key object.
And then, go up here to the control panel
and click Horizontal Align Center,
followed by Vertical Align Center
in order to move that nine into position.
Now you want to move the D into the bottom right square,
so go ahead and click on that square,
Shift + click on the D to select it,
and then click on that square again
to make it the key object.
And now once again click Horizontal Align Center,
followed by Vertical Align Center,
in order to put that letter into place.
Alright now we want to move the I
into this position right there,
and we want to move the L into this green square,
and we're gonna do that by aligning
and then distributing these two letters,
and so I'll go ahead and click on the L
and Shift + click on that orange I,
and then you also want to Shift + click
on the nine to select it.
Alright, now obviously we don't want the nine to move,
so I need to establish it as a key object,
by clicking on it again so it gets that heavy outline,
and then what's tempting to do is to get these guys over
into the proper location,
you might click on Horizontal Align Center
in order to produce this effect here,
and then Shift + click on the D so that it's selected,
go ahead and click on the nine
so it's no longer the key object,
and then you want to distribute these guys.
But notice if I now click on Horizontal Distribute Center,
I'm going to make a mess of things,
and that's because the L has become
the farthest left hand object.
Another problem that we have,
is I've got Align to Artboard turned on,
so I've gotta make a couple of modifications here.
First, I'll switch this to Align to Selection,
so that we don't move the letters
to the far left and right sides of the artboard,
and then I'll press Control + Z,
or Command + Z on a Mac a couple of times,
in order to put the I and the L back where they were.
And now, I'll click once again on the nine
to make it the key object,
and instead of clicking Horizontal Align Center,
I want to click Horizontal Align Left,
so that the nine is as far to the left as the I and the L.
Now click on the nine, so that it's no longer a key object,
then Shift + click on the D so that it's selected,
and now what we're gonna do is distribute the letters
between the two extremes of the nine and the D,
by first clicking Horizontal Distribute Center.
And by the way, you definitely want to click center,
as oppposed to, for example, Horizontal Distribute Right,
which is gonna move that I too far over.
So I'll just go ahead and undo that move.
And then you want to click Vertical Distribute Center
in order to distribute the I and the L
into the proper locations.
Alright, now here's where things get really interesting.
I'm gonna go ahead and click off the letters
to deselect them, then I'll click on the nine,
and Shift + drag across the two, the zero and the one.
You can't use Select Similar Objects by the way,
because we have mixed fills,
and so Illustrator isn't gonna really be able to suss out
that these guys share the same attributes.
Alright, now click again on the nine
and make it the key object,
and then go up here to this option, Vertical Align Center,
and click on it to move those numbers upward.
Now click on the I,
and then Shift + click on all the orange letters,
which include the V, the F and the E,
go ahead and click on the I again to make it the key object,
and click on Vertical Align Center again,
in order to move those guys to the proper locations.
Next I'm gonna work on the red letters,
just cause they're easier to get to,
so click and Shift + click on the O, A and R,
then Shift + click on the D,
and click on it again to make it the key object,
and then go ahead and click Vertical Align Center,
and then finally do the same
with the L, the M, the I and the E,
all the blue letters,
click on the L again to make it the key object,
and then click on Vertical Align Center
in order to move those guys into the proper positions.
Alright, now you want to align the letters
into the proper columns,
which include the nine, the F,
I'm gonna go ahead and Shift + click on that,
the M, and then finally the R.
And so go ahead and make sure those letters are selected,
click once again on the nine to make it the key object,
and then click Horizontal Align Center
in order to move all those letters into the first row.
Now, you'll want to click on the I to make it active,
then Shift + click on the zero, the purple zero there,
Shift + click on the blue I,
and Shift + click on the red O.
Then, click again on the orange I
to make it the key object,
and click Horizontal Align Center
to move those guys into position.
Now click on the L to select it,
you want to Shift + click on the V,
we also want to Shift + click on the number one,
the purple number one right there,
and then Shift + click on the red A,
go ahead and click again on the L to make it the key object,
and click on Horizontal Align Center.
And then finally, go ahead and click on the D,
just go ahead and Shift + marquee the remaining letters
over here on the right hand artboard,
and click on the D again to make it the key object
and then click Horizontal Align Center
in order to move the selection into the final column.
Alright, now we no longer need this extra artboard,
so I'll just go ahead and select the artboard tool,
which again you can get by pressing Shift + zero,
click on that second artboard to select it,
press the backspace key or the delete key on a Mac
to get rid of it.
And then press the escape key,
in order to exit the artboard mode.
Alright now press Shift + Tab
to bring back my right side panels,
and I'll press Control + zero, or Command + zero on a Mac,
to center my remaining artboard.
And that's how you position all the numbers and letters
so that they make sense,
into exactly aligned rows and columns,
using the align and distribute options,
here inside Illustrator.