Smart guides aren't smart

Question

TL:DR Smart guides aren't accurate - even though the snap, (end up causing more problems in the long run) is there a way to fix it?

Maybe there are some settings that I'm missing (need to be changed)

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I use my smart guides all the time (and am overall pleased with them). I do have my issues with it, as explained here:

A lot of times, when I'm trying to make a bunch of triangles like this:

_{Done by making a triangle, cloning, flipping, rotating etc. Repeat until full}

(Perfect) Snapping using Smart Guides

Ends up looking likebetween the triangles (Outline Mode)

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Now I personally (with a strong attention to detail) will notice that there is something off after making just 1 or 2 triangles (Even before outline mode... strokes look oh so slightly thicker/off)

And then I check in outline mode... and sure enough:

Notice the line spaces (and this is in outline mode, so if I didn't notice it before, now it's sitting right in front of my nose)

The way I (seemingly) "fixed" the first image was by adding in a thick stroke outline so that masks out the difference, however, in a lot of my cases I don't want to have a stroke at all (and then you really notice the problems).

Answer 1

Smart guides aren't smart

They are but do not work so good with grids because the pixel grid moves the object on the previous or next pixel/point.

Disable the "align to pixel" and "align to point" and continue working with smart guides.

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EDIT: Example (50x50px workspace)

VS

Answer 2

Apparently, all this has nothing to do with Smart Guides.

Check if Align New Objects to Pixel Grid selected (if so, turn it off)

If it's on... it will keep on jumping like this:

To turn it off, go to the Transform Panel - Window→Transform (Shift+F8) and click on the dropdown menu.

It's often missed since it's hidden in the transform panel, which I never use anyhow.

Answer 3

Offhand.... maybe helpful, maybe not...

Check your Snapping Tolerance for Smart Guides (Preferences > Smart Guides)

The default for AICC it's set at 4pts. Setting it to 1pt will work much better. You can't set it to less than 1pt.

Also turn off Snap to Point in the View Menu.

I still feel "smart" guides aren't always accurate.

Answer 4

For me, I find that Smart Guides are not the most precise or user-friendly way to do what you're describing. I prefer using Snap to Point which can be enabled in the View menu if its off.

• Select the object you're moving, then position your cursor over a specific point on the object when picking up and dragging. In Illustrator CC, this needs to be done with the Direct Select tool (White arrow)
• Then drag the object over to align with a point on another object. When it snaps, the arrow will turn from black to white.

As long as Align to Pixel Grid is off (which is an evil option that can be disabled in the Transform Palette) this produces consistently accurate results.

Answer 5

Ok here's a different take on this thing. The snapping is not inaccurate like you put it, there are just more snapping magnets than you are aware so there is a very big likelihood that you snap to the wrong thing.

The alignment guides, which you rely on, are great if you want to layout sparse elements like text boxes. The problem of alignment guides is that they tend to go and find quite many objects and once your scene complexity grows and you're doing things other than layout. They become more and more useless over time. Great for bread and butter graphic design tasks but not this task.

There is a better way and that is just diametrically opposed to Scott's post*. And that is to rely on just anchors, you may or may not want to turn the alignment guides temporarily in the prefs. The magic trick to mastering Illustrator is not using the selection tool (black arrow) but rather the direct selection tool (white arrow) to drag things from vertices. Select your object, then switch to direct selection tool (or hold Ctrl/Command down with [regular] selection tool).

Once you enable the white arrow tool you can you can move the cursor to a corner point and it says anchor, then drag that until it says anchor. This way you are explicitly telling Illustrator to move this point to this other point and are not relying on Illustrator to guess form several points. Sometimes you need to hold Shift down to tell Illustrator that you want to snap to more objects.

What snapping option you use depends on your situation, if you rely on snap all you'll just get confused.

* But then scott is unhappy with snapping and i am not.