Let’s first understand what are rulers & guides in Canva. Rulers and guides are design tools in Canva that help you align and position elements in your designs.
Rulers are horizontal and vertical lines that appear along the top and left side of your design canvas. They allow you to measure the distance between elements and ensure that they are aligned correctly.
Rulers are particularly useful when you need to align elements with specific dimensions, such as when creating a design with specific size requirements.
Guides, on the other hand, are movable lines that you can position anywhere on your canvas. They are particularly useful when you need to align elements in a specific position, such as when creating a design with a grid or when positioning elements in relation to each other.
You can add guides by clicking and dragging from the vertical or horizontal ruler and position them at any point on your design.
Steps to follow for adding Rulers & Guides
1. Open a blank page or your existing design where you want to add rulers and guides.
2. Click on the “File” option available at the top left of your screen. You will be able to see the “View Settings” option with a gear icon as shown in the below screenshot.
3. Now select the “Show rulers and guides” option under the “View Settings” option.
5. Rulers with dimensions (in pixels) will appear on the top and on the left side of your design as shown in the screenshot.
6. Now click on the left side (or top) ruler to drag and position a guide on the design at a particular pixel as required by you. If required, follow this step again by clicking on the top ruler and drag a guide to place it on the design as shown below.
This completes adding rulers and guides to your Canva design. You can again head over to the “View Settings” option to turn off these rulers and guides anytime.
Advantages of using Rulers & Guides in Canva
1. You see a light gray color on the top ruler when you click or move an element in your design. This helps you to understand the dimensions of the element.
2. With the help of guides, you can place any element in the specific position or parallel to a guide. This will ensure that the overall design is perfectly aligned.
Note: Please note that the rulers and guides are available to use only on a computer at the time of publishing this guide, and are not available on the Mobile app.
Layout Guides: A new feature from Canva
Recently Canva has introduced a new feature called “Layout Guides” that helps control spacing and gutters between the guides easily & quickly.
To access layout guides, follow this path: File > View settings > Add guides. Using Layout Guides, you can add custom guides or choose from the pre-sets of guides like 12 columns, 6 columns, or 3X3 grids.
When you choose custom layout guides, you can select the number of columns and rows that are equally spaced. You also have the option to choose margin and gap, which splits the guides with the specified gap.
Features of Layout Guides:
- Layout Guides bring more structure to the designs.
- They allow designers to have more control over their work.
- Users can choose from pre-sets or create custom guides to match their brand’s precise visual design.
- They help in fueling brand consistency.
- They allow for controlling details like spacing and gutters to ensure designs are precisely on target every time.
- Marketing teams can use them to maintain a brand’s tone, look and feel.
- Ability to lock the guides added to the design.
In summary, rulers and guides in Canva are useful design tools that help you align and position elements in your designs. They are particularly helpful when you need to create designs with specific dimensions or alignment requirements.
By using rulers and guides, you can create designs that are visually appealing, professional, and accurately aligned.