How to Use the Anchoring Properties

Anchoring objects to the margins

Usually, you will want to keep a floating object the same size and position it relative to the margins. To “float” an object both horizontally and vertically without changing its size, you anchor the object to one horizontal and one vertical margin. All sides of the object move in relationship to those margins:

To illustrate how this works, we give you three examples below.

In the illustration below, we show an overlay applied to two different pages. The overlay has a barcode field that has been placed at the top left margin:

To keep the barcode field in the same position relative to the top left corner of the page, we need to anchor it to the top and left margins. You would:

1. Place the field in the top left corner so the top and left sides are on the margins.

2. Set the anchoring properties as follows:

In this example, the same barcode field is positioned in the top right corner of the page 0.16" from the top margin and 0.4" from the right margin:

This time, we need to anchor the barcode field to the top and right margins to keep it in the same position relative to the top right corner of the page. You would:

1. Place the field in the top right corner below the top margin and to the right of the right margin.

2. Set the anchoring properties as follows:

In this example, we position the same barcode field below the bottom margin and about 0.3" inches from the left margin. The top of the barcode field sits on the bottom margin:

Here we want the field to move with the left margin and bottom margin, so we position it relative to the bottom margin and the left margin. To keep the barcode field in the same position, you would:

1. Place the field in the bottom left corner of the page so the top sits on the bottom margin and the left side is 0.3" to the right of the left margin.

2. Set the anchoring properties as follows:

Stretching objects

Sometimes it is actually desirable to allow a floating object to be stretched. For example, you may want to place a line to separate your footer information from the form or to place a border around the page at the margins. By allowing them to be stretched based on the form page margins, you can allow them to resize to fit the form.

Here is how it works:

To give you a better idea, we give you two examples below.

The overlay shown on the two pages below has a line that stretches between the margins near the bottom of the page:

The line is about 1 inch from the bottom margin. To create the above effect, you would do the following:

1. Draw a horizontal line that stretches from the left margin to the right margin and position it near the bottom margin.

2. Set the anchoring properties as follows:

If you want to border your form pages, it is easier to place the rectangle border on an overlay so the rectangle doesn’t get in the way when you are selecting other objects on your page. You can easily create a border overlay that will anchor to the margins of any page:

For the above rectangle border to adjust to the margins, you need to anchor it to all four margins. To create the above border, you would:

1. Draw a rectangle that sits just outside the page margins. This will ensure that any objects on your pages that are aligned to the margins won’t run into the border.

2. Set the anchoring properties as follows:

Anchoring objects to the center

The Center anchoring option anchors the center of the object to the center of the useful page area (the center point between the two margins). When the margins change, the center of the object will always be the same distance from the center of the page. The size of the object will not change:

By using both the horizontal and vertical centering options, you can place an object in the exact center of the page:

The object will always be centered to the center of the page, based on the position of the margins.

To center the object as we did above, you would do the following:

1. Set the page margins as follows:

• Make the Top and Bottom margins the same size.

• Make the Left and Right margins the same size.

This will allow you to use the Center and Middle positioning tools to center your object on the overlay.

2. Create the object on your overlay and center it to the page.

3. Set the following anchoring properties:

Important:

For layout purposes, it is important to have “equal” margins as we did above because the Center/Middle positioning tools center the object to the physical page. If your margins are off­set, the object will not be centered between the margins when you create it.

In this example, we want to place the page number in the center of the page just below the bottom margin:

By using the Center option, we can place the text box in the center of any page:

To center the page number as we do above, you would do the following:

1. Make sure the left and right margins of your page are equal so you can use the Center position­ing tool.

2. Create a system text box for the page numbers and position it below the bottom margin.

3. Center-align the text in the text box.

4. Center-align the text box to the page.

5. Set the following anchor properties:

Logos can also be centered using the Center option. The center of the object will maintain its center position between the margins if the margins change:

To center a logo as shown in the example above, you would:

1. Make sure the left and right margins are equal.

2. Create your logo and center it to the page.

3. Set the following anchoring properties:

Using only one anchor

Up to this point, our examples have used both horizontal and vertical anchors. However, it is possible to float an object horizontally only, leaving its vertical position absolute, or vertically only, leaving its horizontal position absolute:

Suppose that, in order to be read by an automatic scanning device, the bottom of a barcode field had to be ¼" from the bottom of the page. It can be anywhere horizontally, but you want it to be positioned at the right margin, so you can position form identifier information at the left margin, just under the bottom margin:

If the bottom margin position changes, the form information will shift with it, but the barcode field will not:

To create the above overlay, you would:

1. Create the system text box or text box containing the form information and place it at the left margin, just below the bottom margin.

2. Anchor it to the left margin horizontally and the bottom margin vertically.

3. Create a barcode field and position it so that the bottom is exactly ¼" from the bottom edge of the page. (To get the Y position of the object, add ¼" to the height of the barcode field and subtract the sum from the page height.)

4. Anchor it horizontally to the right margin and set the vertical margin to None.

Special conditions and considerations

Once you understand the general principles for applying anchors, you can adapt them to handle just about any condition. Here are some situations when “special handling” is called for.

Anchoring lines to margins can be a little tricky. For instance, to stretch a line vertically, you would set the vertical anchor to Both Margins. The horizontal anchor would need to be set to Left Margin, Right Margin, Center, or None. If you set the horizontal anchor to Both Margins, the line will stretch diagonally instead of ver­tically:

The same concept applies to horizontal lines. To stretch a horizontal line, set the horizontal anchor to Both Margins. The vertical anchor of the horizontal line would need to be set to Top Margin, Bottom Margin, Center, or None. If you set the vertical anchor to Both Margins, the line will stretch diagon­ally:

You may have a page footer that contains multiple objects, which you want to keep in the same re­lative position:

If this overlay is applied to a page with wider margins, the objects are distributed in the same rela­tive position on the page:

To anchor multiple objects as shown above, you would:

1. Position your objects across the page.

2. Set the anchoring properties:

• Anchor objects that are at or near a margin to that margin.

• Anchor objects that are at or near the center of the page to the center.

For the above, you would set:

When you anchor multiple objects across the page as we did in our example above, your objects can overlap if you apply your overlay to a page with margins that are too large:

To avoid this, we recommend that you design your overlays on a page with the largest possible margins you expect to use for a form. If you use the same overlay for both portrait and landscape pages, be sure to design it in portrait layout.