Rulers, guides, grid and snapping

Updated 2026-10-09

Rulers

View → Rulers (Cmd/Ctrl+R) shows rulers along the top and left of the canvas, in pixels. They follow zoom and scrolling, and mark where the pointer is.

Guides

Drag down from the top ruler for a horizontal guide, or right from the left ruler for a vertical one.
View → New Guide… places a guide at an exact position.
With the Move tool, drag a guide to move it. Drag it back onto a ruler (or off the canvas) to delete it.
View → Guides (Cmd/Ctrl+;) hides or shows them, View → Lock Guides stops them moving and View → Clear Guides removes them all.

Guides are saved with the project and can be undone like any other change. They never appear in exported images.

Grid

View → Grid (Cmd/Ctrl+') shows a grid over the canvas. Set its spacing with View → Grid Size…. When you zoom out far, the grid shows every second or fourth line so it stays readable.

Snapping and smart guides

With View → Snap on (the default), moving or resizing a layer, drawing a selection or shape, adjusting the crop box and dragging a guide all snap to nearby guides, grid lines, the edges and centre of the canvas, and the edges and centres of other layers. Pink lines show what something snapped to. Hold Cmd (macOS) or Ctrl while dragging to place it freely; turn snapping off entirely with View → Snap.

Align

Layer → Align lines up the active layer's left edges, horizontal centres, right edges, top edges, vertical centres or bottom edges with the canvas — or with the selection, when there is one.

Limitations

Distributing several layers evenly is not available yet (it needs multi-layer selection).
Rotated layers snap when moved, but their handles don't snap while scaling.