Temporarily disable snap/smart guides

I saw that there was an old post on this with an elaborate workaround, but I'm hoping there's something new in CS5.
Is there a button that you can hold that will temporarily disable the snap to and smart guide features so that you can move an object freely? What I'm looking for is the same function as holding the ctrl key while working in InDesign. It seems like it would be really useful to be able to do that and I feel like I'm missing something obvious, so sorry if this is a silly question.

Can someone please point me to WHERE in the AI CS5 help this is actually documented? I've spent the last 15 minutes scoring the hotkeys, and the "Selecting and arranging objects" portions of the help file and no dice. Is Adobe really just counting on the community to do its dirty work of documenting their software properly. This isn't an MMO folks, where it's "part of the game" to figure out how stuff is done. spend more time on your docs.
Note: I'm not saying it ain't there - I'm saying if it is, it ain't logical or cross-referenced. And god forbid one should try to use your Search feature!

Similar Messages

Illustrator CC 18.0.0 Snapping/Smart Guides STILL Broken?!

I know this issue has had some coverage but I'm still extremely frustrated that with all the new features in AI, snapping to guides, anchors, lines, or whatever, is still not precise. I just don't understand why they can't seem to get this right. What is the point of snapping if it's always going to be off by a few thousandths of a pixel? Working with what is supposed to be the world's best illustration application, I still have to make adjustments with the transform panel. Isn't it about time they fix this issue, or am I the crazy one?

I gave a couple of examples but I'll go ahead and repeat it:
Say you have 2 points that aren't joined and you want to join them. So, you grab an anchor, drag it over (holding 'ctrl' so it snaps to other anchors) and as you get close it snaps and says 'anchor', then you select both points with a fence, then join them. Now deselect then select the new point and drag it. At least 25% of the time, it doesn't join two points, it averages them, creating a third point. This is especially frustrating when joining paths that have curves, and that mask or reveal other objects. I do a lot of designs that must be pixel-precise and that is a lot more work than it should be in AI.
I have used several other vector programs and none of them have this weird, inconsistent behavior.
Here's another example: Create a rectangle 100x100. Then drag a guide to one side, then the other. The guides should be exactly 100px apart, right? Maybe. Delete the rectangle and draw a line between the two guides. Chances are they are no longer 100px apart. They are 99.003 or 101.003 or something, making AI the worst tool ever for doing website mockups. It's actually less trouble for me to bang out CSS in Brackets and do mockups that way... but not because Brackets is meant for that, but because AI sucks for it, and that's idiotic.
I am seriously considering ending my CC subscription and going with a combo of open source apps. I mean, if I'm going to struggle with something, I'd prefer for that effort to go to learning something new, not fighting the same fight over and over, for years and years, on something that should be easily fixed.

Smart Guides without the snapping

I would want to see them but without the snapping.
Ben

At least up to Illustrator 13, there is a trick or rather a lousy hack that involves the Snap to Grid command and its talent to temporarily disable any Smart Guides functionality. The following has to be prepared in case you're going to execute the hack as an action:
1. In the Actions Palette, create a new Action set. Call it 'Disable Smart Guides'.
2. Within the Action set, create a new action. Call it 'Disable Smart Guides', assign an F-key to the action, let's say F3, and hit Enter.
3. In the Actions Palette menu, select the Insert Menu Item command and go to View > Snap to Grid
4. Stop recording the action
5. Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides & Grid
6. In the Gridline Every text box, enter 0,01 mm. It's the minimum value you can set here.
7. In the Subdivisions text box, enter 1000, the max. value accepted here.
Now, take any document, turn on Smart Guides, make sure Snap to Grid is turned off, and start drawing a path. Hit F3 and continue drawing the path. Hit F3 again as soon as you need your Smart Guides again.
As you can see, after hitting F3 to enable Snap to Grid, the path will not be interrupted when placing the next point. And as you've got a kind of microscopic Grid settings, Snap to Grid has almost no influence on where the points are placed. In fact, it still snaps, but due to the absurd Grid settings it's rather negligible.
This palpable workaround was originally invented by a young lady located around Edmonton in Canada.

Any way to temporarily ignore smart guides while using the pen tool?

I'm having a hate and love relationship with Smart Guides. When I want them they're bad; when I don't they're good.
While trying to do some things with the pen tool, I am frequently faced with the smart guides snapping my tool around without my wanting it snapped. I'm not really that good with the pen tool yet, so it's making an uphill climb even harder when they interfere.
Now I know that I can disable smart guides by doing Ctrl-U, but this has the side effect of releasing my pen from the current curve I'm working on. When I click the end of that curve to start where I left off it changes the anchor to a corner instead of curve and messes up what I was going on. This wouldn't be such a problem except that I sometimes want the guides while I'm still on the same curve so I don't want to fully disable them as I'm working and then have to re-enable to fix a spot, know what I mean?
So, is there a key I can hold down to temporarily turn disable smart guides or ignore them in some way? I've hit quite a few keys trying this out so I'm guessing no. This probably indicates I just need to improve my skill to learn how to work with this best.

At least up to Illustrator 13, there is a trick or rather a lousy hack that involves the Snap to Grid command and its talent to temporarily disable any Smart Guides functionality. The following has to be prepared in case you're going to execute the hack as an action:
1. In the Actions Palette, create a new Action set. Call it 'Disable Smart Guides'.
2. Within the Action set, create a new action. Call it 'Disable Smart Guides', assign an F-key to the action, let's say F3, and hit Enter.
3. In the Actions Palette menu, select the Insert Menu Item command and go to View > Snap to Grid
4. Stop recording the action
5. Go to Edit > Preferences > Guides & Grid
6. In the Gridline Every text box, enter 0,01 mm. It's the minimum value you can set here.
7. In the Subdivisions text box, enter 1000, the max. value accepted here.
Now, take any document, turn on Smart Guides, make sure Snap to Grid is turned off, and start drawing a path. Hit F3 and continue drawing the path. Hit F3 again as soon as you need your Smart Guides again.
As you can see, after hitting F3 to enable Snap to Grid, the path will not be interrupted when placing the next point. And as you've got a kind of microscopic Grid settings, Snap to Grid has almost no influence on where the points are placed. In fact, it still snaps, but due to the absurd Grid settings it's rather negligible.
This palpable workaround was originally invented by a young lady located around Edmonton in Canada.

Premiere CS4: How to Set/Disable Snap Area?

I'd like to shorten one of my clips only a few frames. But if I use the Delete and Fill Gaps tool (my translation from German version) I can only shorten my clip for a minimum of, say, 20 frames because there seems some kind of snapping functionality enabled.
This snapping mechanism clings my selection to the clip's current end until I've left a certain area around that clip's end.
How can I set the width of this snapping area? Can I disable it temporarily, e.g. by pressing something like a <SHIFT> key?
Your help is appreciated.

Thanks, Jeff!
Do you perhaps know where I can find a menu item on this? I guess I might forget this shortcut after a while. But my motor memory will better remember menu items.
Is there also a way to just temporarily disable snapping? When I'm already dragging I wouldn't want to release the mouse when I'm already at the destination position.

Snap to? Smart Guides? Not sure what the issue is but it's annoying.

Just made the big step up from CS2 to CS5. Lots of changes as to be expected but otherwise a smooth transition. Nice work Adobe.
One recurring issue has got me baffled and annoyed. It appears to be a snap-to function yet I'm unable to locate the place where it might be disabled.
In my previous version of InDesign resizing window sizes and shapes was a fluid and easy motion. Now it's staggering and akward. The text and picture boxes want to snap on an unseen grid. I understand how this can be a useful function for some kinds of work but it also gets in the way of composing an image.
Any suggestions on how to disable this?
Presently, I have both Smart Guides and Snap to Document Grid UNCHECKED in the View menu yet I'm remain unable to smoothly and fluidly size my text and picture boxes.
Thanks!

There's another new feature, Live Screen Drawing, that's on by default, but for many users it causes real choppiness in moving around on screen. It's at the bottom of the Interface section of the preferences. Try setting it to Delayed. That will allow you to have a live preview when you really want it by clicking, then holding for a moment before you drag, but moving immediately will give you what you are used to in CS2.
I actually think Smart Guides are worth using. They save me a TON of time.

[CS3 - Win] Smart Guides not showing up when Snap To Grid enabled

Has anyone else encountered this bug?
AI CS3 13.02
Smart Guides are turned on, but hovering over items does not show the cyan hints, snapping to anchor points / paths etc does not work. This only occurs when Snap To Grid is enabled. If you then go and turn it off, the Smart Guides start working again as expected.
Is this a known bug?
Tom

Thanks for the reply Mike. Smart Guides work perfectly for me provided Snap to Grid is turned off.
I can see there being a conflict between snapping to grid and smart guides in CS3 - which takes precedence? From a UX perspective, if these two snapping modes are mutually exclusive, there should be at the very least an alert letting you know the other mode is disabled; the menu item should be greyed out. Or if it's truly an either-or situation, then the menu needs to be revised such that both snap to grid and smart guides are within the same submenu, and only one can be selected at a time, toggle with CMD+SHIFT+OPT+U.
T

Smart Guides: Disable Intersect Alinement

I've got a page filled with small circles, and I'm using smart guides to draw paths between their centers. However, with so many objects, the intersect guide is distracting. Is there a way to disable it?

The intersect guide can be turned off under Preferences.
Note: I'm new to CS6...upgraded from the very old CS3 and I had trouble moving object tiny amounts...it kept snapping some other direction. Solution... turn off the anit-aliasing feature under the transform window. Note: I plan on turning this back on again once I'm done creating this artwork, since I am using it on websites and have learned that the anti-aliasing makes the type appear crisper when converting to a PNG.

Disabling smart guides

Hello,
How can I keep smart guides turned on so that it snaps to points and lines, but at the same time disable the snap to angle function? I have tried changing the fields in the preferences to 0 degrees, or even leaving the fields empty but it seems to always want to snap to some angle.
Thanks,
JT

John,
there are a lot of reasons and most of them have been mentioned in both the AI Mac and Win forum many times. There is a short summary by Scott Weichert to which I agree for the most part.
http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bc8ba34/6
To me, the AI CS 3 Outline stroke bug is the most fatal one and this bug alone has made me quit using CS 3 very soon. There are other bug related reasons, too.
Also, I am not going to accept and support Adobe's new aggressive pricing policy in conjunction with international versions of Illustrator CS 3 and the whole Creative suite series. Prices for non US American versions always used to be a bit higher (which is ok), but this time Adobe decided to overdraw its policy. You can understand that by consulting Adobe's international online stores and comparing the prices.
It does not necessarily have to concern you, but to me (and to many other users I know) it was definitely another reason to reject using Illustrator CS 3.

CS5 Photoshop - How do I disable Smart Guides

Hello,
Smart guides are driving me mad. It never selects the region I'm selecting. It causes the selection to always jump a little up or to the left or right and then I have to zoom in to readjust the selection. The innacurate selection thanks to these guides are driving me absolutely crazy! Is there a way to disable them because I can't seem to find it.
CS5's logic is really aggravating and slows down the creativew process as I have to interrupt my flow constantly.
Any help is appreciated
~TheEternalAbyss

I'm not sure if I can get a screenshot that would be helpful. I can try to get some, but in the meantime I can try to describe step by step what I'm trying to do:
1. I select the Marquee toool in order to make a selection around an object I want to modify
2. Then I am simply making my selection
3. The result is the my selection is just slightly off from where I had selected
4. Then in order to fix it I have to zoom in and modify the selection using ctrl/alt+selecting with my mouse
I hope this made it a bit clearer.

Smart Guide/Snap to point not working

Hi
I am trying to remove a circular shape from a rectangle in illustrator, the retangles width is 10px and the diameter of the circle is 13px, I centre the circle ontop of the rectangle ( or I appear to) but when I use the Shape mode tool minus front, the circle is no longer centred ( see images)
I have tried switching off smart guides and snap to grid and am still having the same problem.
In the above image you can see once I have divided the 13px circle from the rectangle it has moved off to one side.
Also when I am trying to manually place the circle ( rather than using the centre guides ) I can only move it by a large degree it alway moves further than I move the mouse, could this be because of a pixel grid? I do not think I am using this. ( can see in the above image where I am trying to place the circle and when I let go of the mouse, the grey circle is where it lands
From the 2 images below you can see that there is a 1px difference on either side of the extracted circle I was trying to get centred
I should mention that the 'Align to pixel grid' in the transform menu is inactive when I am trying to do this, as I initially thought that this may be the cause of my problems, but it made no difference

Rebecca,
So why does the minus front tool mess up alignment so much?
No clue. I believe this issue has never been reported.
At a first glance, it really looked like an Align to Pixel Grid issue, and also the fact that it works when both object widths have an odd (or even) number of pixels.
But that is apart from the fact that you stated that it was off. If it were on, Align to Pixel Grid would apply to the circle, to the rectangle, or to both.
Obviously, it is possible to (direct) select each and check. It is also possible to check the Y value of the centre for both in the Transform palette and see that they are actually identical before applying the Pathfinder.
And if on, Align to Pixel Grid should also affect/destroy the Object>Path>Divide Objects Below way. And it should make it impossible to even place both objects centre aligned when one is an odd number of pixels wide and the other is an even number wide.
As the issue is described, it may indicate some Pathfinder>Minus Front malfunctioning.
It may be worth trying some of the following things (you may have tried/done some of them already) and see whether it helps (the following is a general list of things you may try when it is not in a specific file; 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt preferences):
1) Close down Illy and open again;
2) Restart the computer;
3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);
4) Move the folder with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible);
5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, other items may also be relevant);
Even more seriously, you may:
6) Uninstall, run the Cleaner Tool if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6, and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

Illustrator CC Free Transform not Snapping to Guides, No Smart Guides

The Free Transform tool in Illustrator CC won't snap to Guides, and Smart Guides don't seem to work either.
I have all the options checked in Preferences > Smart Guides > Display Options and the Snapping Tolerance turned way up.
In CS6, Free Transform with Smart Guides allowed you to snap to paths, points, alignments and guides.
Also: Any way to hide/minimize the Free Transform popup?

James,
Depending on the urgency of your plight, you may await some cleverer suggestions, or read on.
When seems to be wrong for no apparent reason, and it is not limited to certain (existing) documents, you may consider the following (you may have tried/done some of them already) and see whether it helps, unless someone comes up with a cleverer suggestion.
The following is a general list of things you may try when the issue is not in a specific file; 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt preferences:
1) Close down Illy and open again;
2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to 3 times);
3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);
4) Move the folder Other options (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible);
5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);
Even more seriously, you may:
6) Uninstall, run the Cleaner Tool, and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

CS4 Smart Guides; snapping one anchor to another

Just upgraded to CS4, I *really* can't get my head around these Smart Guides.
I've been in the preferences and tried every combination of settings, tell me if this is correct:
If I draw two boxes, grab the anchor point in the corner of one box, and try and drag it to the anchor of the other box, Smart Guides will no longer snap to that anchor.
This is getting super frustrating, thanks for any help if I'm missing something.

Dr Griggs wrote:
Thanks for the video, but you mentioned in it you had to "Hold down Command" to make it work. I found out that was the answer for CS4. It's just super disappointing that there's no toggle for this.
To my understanding, no version of Illustrator before has ever made you do this. So that's great, after upgrading I have an extra button press to my common workflow. Awesome.
Now if you asked me why I would have told you that I had been in the rectangle tool so I was holding don the Command key to switch to the direct selection tool.
It is not necessary to hold down the command key in order for this to work. You can use the direct select tool as well if you have switched to it but I use the command key so that I cn have a different too selected such as the rectangle or pen tool when I am drawing.
Snap to point works as expected.
I hope this answers your question. Would you like to see a video? Keep in mind the selection tool would need to have the bounding box hidden or you will resize it if you try to drag a corner.But that would have been the case in any version.

Weird smart guides snapping behavior

i've been using cs4 for a little while and i've been noticing some annoying things about smart guides. when i start illustrator everything works fine, the smart guides snap to edges correctly, but as i continue to work with illustrator the smart guides snapping function gets less reliable. my snapping tolerance is 3pt which shouldnt be the problem. as you can see in the attached image, the distance between the edges of the two rectangles is less than 3pts (i'm zoomed in). does this happen to you guys?
thanks for your help!
sergie
Message was edited by: thesergie

oh shoot, i just answered my own question. i was trying to figure out what the heck was going on and i started holding down different modifiers to see what happens (shift, control, alt) and i found something new! wow! i'm so excited!! holding down control when using smart guides gives snapping preference to the edge you are holding with the mouse! i think this should be default, but in any case its good to know it aint broke!
thanks anyways!
sergie

Smart guides and snap to point not working in Adobe Illustrator CC 2014

Hello,
I am having a lot of issues with Illustrator CC 2014 and the Smart Guides. Every time I try and snap one object to another or snap an object to a guide, the object snaps either above or below the guide/object but never snaps correctly. This also happens when I am zoomed in all the way!
I do not have align to pixel grid or snap to grid turned on.

David,
I do not have align to pixel grid or snap to grid turned on
It sounds as if Illy thinks the former.
The following is a general list of things you may try when the issue is not in a specific file (you may have tried/done some of them already); 1) and 2) are the easy ones for temporary strangenesses, and 3) and 4) are specifically aimed at possibly corrupt preferences); 5) is a list in itself, and 6) is the last resort.
1) Close down Illy and open again;
2) Restart the computer (you may do that up to 3 times);
3) Close down Illy and press Ctrl+Alt+Shift/Cmd+Option+Shift during startup (easy but irreversible);
4) Move the folder (follow the link with that name) with Illy closed (more tedious but also more thorough and reversible);
5) Look through and try out the relevant among the Other options (follow the link with that name, Item 7) is a list of usual suspects among other applications that may disturb and confuse Illy, Item 15) applies to CC, CS6, and maybe CS5);
Even more seriously, you may:
6) Uninstall, run the Cleaner Tool (if you have CS3/CS4/CS5/CS6/CC), and reinstall.
http://www.adobe.com/support/contact/cscleanertool.html

Temporarily disable snap/smart guides

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