Use dynamic guides and snapping

The canvas dynamic guides and control point snapping help you align selected points with other objects.

Use control point snapping on a shape

  1. Choose View > Overlays and make sure the Dynamic Guides menu item is checkmarked.

    Selecting Dynamic Guides from the View menu

  2. Choose View > Snap and make sure the Snap menu item is checkmarked.

  3. In the canvas, Layers list, or Timeline, select the shape to edit.

  4. In the canvas toolbar, click and hold the transform tools pop-up menu, then choose Edit Points.

    Selecting the Edit Points tool from the transform tools in the canvas toolbar

    Note: In the canvas, you can also Control-click a shape and choose Edit Points from the shortcut menu.

  5. In the canvas, drag a control point.

    Yellow guides appear when the selected control point aligns with the edges or center of the original shape, the edges or center of other objects, or the center of the canvas.

    Canvas showing Bezier shape with a guide appearing when control point is aligned with another control point on same shape

Turn off snapping while editing control points

You can temporarily disable snapping to allow for subtle shape adjustments.

Do one of the following:

Specify whether control points snap to the center, edges, or both the center and edges of an object

  1. Choose Motion > Preferences (or press Command-comma).

  2. In the Canvas pane, click the Snap Objects At Their pop-up menu, then choose an option.