Hi. I'm creating an image (a piece of desktop publishing) that requires me to create guides. It also requires razor-sharp accuracy; no guesswork. My problem is that it seems to be impossible to create guides with accuracy: I can only drag from the rulers to some arbitrary position that does not snap to grid.

That guides do not snap to grid is at first surprising given that I have "Snap guides while dragging" enabled. However, on further inspection (the tooltip), this is oddly only meant to enable snapping to objects. So my questions are:

* Why is the "Snap guides while dragging" option not designed to snap to grid?
* Is there any other way that I can make guide-dragging snap to grid?
* Is there any numerical/dialog way of creating a guide, and/or is there any way of adjusting the properties (i.e. position) of a specific guide? (I come from a Photoshop background, here.)

Thanks for your time.

(Inkscape version: 0.46)

• double-click while over guide and watch...

or even better

• try a recent prerelease build from http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkscape/files/inkscape/0.47pre1/

[edit=add notes]

• Release notes 0.46: Grids, guides, snapping
• Release notes 0.47: Editing Aids

[/edit]

Guest wrote:* Why is the "Snap guides while dragging" option not designed to snap to grid?

I have no answer to that.

Guest wrote:* Is there any other way that I can make guide-dragging snap to grid?

Not that I know of in 0.46, but IIRC it was recently added and will be in 0.47

Workaround A

1. enable grid, snap to grid
2. use the rectangle tool to draw objects where you need the guides
3. use menu 'Object > Objects to Guides' to convert the rectangles to guides
4. in 'Inkscape Preferences > Tools' you have the option to keep objects after conversion to guides

Workaround B

• install the extension Guides Creator (available for 0.46 and 0.46+devel). It offers different presets for a guidelines grid, though some features are still lacking (e.g. you cannot create a grid with a user defined gap setting between columns/rows)

Guest wrote:* Is there any numerical/dialog way of creating a guide, and/or is there any way of adjusting the properties (i.e. position) of a specific guide?

As described in my previous comment, you can double-click a guide to get a dialog with its properties including x and y coordinates.

Inkscape 0.47 will include many new features regarding snapping, guides creation and manipulation. Current prerelease builds (0.47pre1) don't include the 'guides snap to grid' feature yet, but release date got closer with 'feature freeze' declared today for 0.47. So stay tuned!

hth, ~suv

I found getting guides in the right place frustrating with 0.46

Here's an alternative method:
Draw a Vertical or Horizontal Stroke, using a grid, where you want a guide;
Do Object->Objects To Guides (shift-G)

I'm not sure why the following isn't precise enough, but just because it hasn't been mentioned, I'll add:

1 - Place cursor over Guide, so that the guide is highlighted.
2 - Double-click.
3 - In the dialog that opens, enter the exact point where you need the guide to be.
4 - OK

Excellent. Double-clicking just didn't occur to me (though I don't think it's anywhere in documentation). The dialog is enough for me. Too lazy to install an extension, so I look forward to 0.47.

Well, I guess it won't be all that long before 0.47 is released, so yay!
And I just wanted to say Welcome -- I see you registered. This really is a great place to get help learning Inkscape; many amazingly talented members!