Nudging Graphics
Published on 15th December 2004
This month we are going to look at moving graphics in your documents, and getting them just in the right place by nudging them.
As you know, you can position pictures, clipart, charts, etc by dragging them into place. But, do you sometimes find that they seem to jump from one place to the next and the position you want is between the two?
This jumping effect is due to the Snap to Grid option, which has an imaginary grid on the page at 2mm intervals that the graphic has to line up to, and when you stop dragging it jumps to the nearest gridline. This is useful in making graphics line-up with each other but can be frustrating too.
You can turn the grid off (on the Drawing toolbar click Draw - Grid to display the dialog box), but if you use the keyboard to move the graphic the grid is ignored. This is known as Nudging because you are pushing the graphic just a tiny bit.
To nudge the object:
- Select the graphic object or text box you want to nudge.
- Press the arrow-key for the direction you want to nudge it.
- Experiment with the Shift, Ctrl and Alt keys to see how they nudge different distances. (E.G.: In Word the arrow keys on their own will nudge to the next gridline, but holding down Ctrl will nudge it one screen pixel, whereas in Publisher use the Shift key to nudge the larger distances and fine-tune it using the arrow-keys only.)
Make sure you experiment with these key combinations. In some programs one of the combinations will make the object bigger instead. (e.g.: Access: Shift+arrow makes objects bigger.)
Remember, even if the object looks in the right place on screen, the print-out can show a misalignment. Fix this by zooming in (View - Zoom and choose at least 200%) and then nudge. Because the smallest nudges are just one pixel, when you are zoomed in each pixel is a smaller part of the page.