The Smart Guides & Slices Panel In addition to normal guides, Illustrator has a useful feature called Smart Guides, which performs a variety of cursor feedback options while you work. You can activate this feature by choosing View > Smart Guides. The Smart Guides preferences allow you to control the behavior of this feature (Figure C.8). Figure C.8. The Smart Guides & Slices Preferences panel.
Display Options. Text Label Hints identify items on your screen as you mouse over them (Figure C.9); Construction Guides help you align objects by indicating when they are on similar planes or angles as other objects (Figure C.10); Transform Tools offer similar functionality to construction guides, but they are specifically for when you are using any of Illustrator's transformation tools (Figure C.11); and Object Highlighting identifies the underlying original artwork when you mouse over artwork that has had effects or envelopes applied to it (Figure C.12). Figure C.9. A Text Label smart guide quickly identifies elements on your screen. Figure C.10. A Construction Guides smart guide makes it easy to position objects. Figure C.11. A Transform Tools smart guide helps when performing transformations. Figure C.12. An Object Highlighting smart guide makes it easy to quickly find and edit objects. Angles. The Angles settings allow you to specify at what angles Smart Guides appear when you're using any of the just-mentioned display options. Snapping Tolerance. The Snapping Tolerance setting specifies the distance to the original pixel from when a Smart Guide is activated. Slices. Slices are regions that you define to better optimize web graphics. In Preferences, you can define how these slices are indicated on the Illustrator artboard.
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