---
title: "How to align to key object in Illustrator"
author: Steve McKinney
date: 2016-06-14T06:27:00+00:00
lastmod: 2017-02-08T19:40:54+00:00
categories: ["Design", "Quick tip"]
url: https://iamsteve.me/blog/illustrator-quick-tip-align-to-key-object
---

Aligning to a key object in Illustrator is one of the most useful alignment options. If you’ve ever been frustrated with aligning objects centrally, then everything nudges over a few pixels. This is where align to key object comes in, read on for how to.

## When and why

The most common use case I can think of is making buttons. You’ve got a rectangle, above that is some text, which you want to align centrally. The rectangle is positioned correctly, your text isn’t. **You use the alignment tools and everything is now off by a few pixels**. This is the perfect use case for align to key object.

## How to

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To align to key object you must select two items and then change the ‘Align To’ option to Align to Key Object. **The crucial part is then clicking the item you want to use to for aligning to**.

## Quicker for axis alignment