Aligning shapes

- [Instructor] The align tool helps us center or align several shapes. Let's explore how it works. Now, I want to line up a series of letters. So let's switch to text, and then drag a few different letters into the workspace. We'll zoom in, and I'm going to make the A look bigger, so it looks like a capital letter. I'll select all of the letters. And choose a line. And we get these circular handles, and as I mouse over them, you can see a preview of how the objects would be aligned.

You could center them, top justify them, bottom justify them, that looks good. You can choose to exit. All right, let's try a different example. Let's select these and delete, you might also use the align tool to center two objects. We'll choose a box, and a sphere. I'll hold down the shift key, and drag up the grip on the sphere, until it's 25 millimeters.

And switch it to a whole. We'll use control A to select both objects, click on the align tool or use the keyboard shortcut L. And align them on the centers of all three axis. Then I can select them both and group them. So notice this example, when we align our objects, they both moved. And sometimes that's okay, but if you've already specifically placed one object, you have another option. So, let's undo our work here, we'll bump back a couple times, using undo.

Select our objects again, and use that L shortcut key. Now to snap two objects, I'll click on the box. You can see how those handles move. Then I can choose to center that sphere on the box. I'll click on the workplane, to get out of that mode. Select them both, and group them. As you design, use the align tool to add another level of accuracy to your projects.