Custom guides are visual guides that you can create and apply to artwork files during the review process. They help ensure artwork meets specific design requirements by applying SVG templates onto your files.
These guides are particularly useful for:
Template Alignment: Ensuring artwork aligns with specific design templates.
Quality Control: Verifying that design elements are positioned correctly.
Multi-page Documents: Maintaining consistency across booklets, brochures, or magazines.
Custom Specifications: Applying client-specific layout requirements.
Custom guides are organized into Guide Groups, making it easy to manage different sets of guides for various projects or requirements.
Guide Groups help you organize related guides together (for example, "Product Catalog Guides", "Magazine Layout", "Label Templates").
Steps to create a Guide Group:
Navigate to Settings in the artworker interface.
Click Custom guides in the settings menu.
Activate custom guides via the toggle in the top right.
Click the New guide group button (top right).
In the guide group form, enter:
Name: A descriptive name for your guide group (for example, "A4 Magazine Layout").
Description (optional): Additional details about when to use this group.
Click Save to save your guide group.
Your new guide group will appear in the Custom guides list.
Once you have a guide group, you can add individual guides to it.
Steps to add a guide:
From the Custom guides page, click on the guide group where you want to add a guide.
Click the New guide button (top right).
In the guide form, configure:
Guide Name: A descriptive name (for example, "Bleed Guide", "Text Safety Zone").
Double-sided guide: Enable this checkbox if the guide should flip horizontally on even-numbered pages (useful for booklets and magazines where inside/outside margins differ).
Size Settings:
Width and height for your guide (in mm or inches, depending on your artworker settings).
Use the size preset dropdown or enter custom dimensions.
SVG File: Upload the SVG file that contains your guide design.
Click Choose file or drag and drop your SVG file.
The SVG will be displayed as a preview once uploaded.
Click Add Guide to [Group Name] to save your guide.
Tip: The guide will be centered on the artwork at the dimensions you specify.
Navigate to the guide group containing the guide.
Click the three-dot menu (⋮) on the guide card.
Select Edit.
Make your changes and click Update Guide in [Group Name].
Click the three-dot menu (⋮) on the guide card.
Select Delete.
Confirm the deletion.
Click the guide preview thumbnail on the guide card.
A preview window will open showing the SVG file.
Edit a group: Click the three-dot menu on a guide group card and select Edit.
Delete a group: Click the three-dot menu and select Delete (this will delete all guides within the group).
Once you've created custom guides, you can apply them when reviewing artwork files.
Steps to display custom guides:
Open an artwork file in the file viewer.
Open the View menu.
Go to Guides.
Select a guide from Custom guides.
The selected guide will appear on your artwork.
If you selected a double-sided guide, it will automatically flip horizontally on even-numbered pages when viewing multi-page documents.
Note: For custom guides, the guide key panel is not shown in the viewer.
When sending proofs to customers, you can configure which guides they'll see.
Steps to include guides in a proof:
Navigate to the Proof settings for your job.
In the proof configuration, locate the Guides (Optional) section.
Choose one of the available guide modes:
None for no guides.
Expected size guides for trim/bleed/safety guides from preflight settings.
Native Bounding Boxes to show PDF-native boundaries.
Custom guides and then select a specific guide from your saved guide groups.
Save your proof settings.
When you send the proof to the customer, they will see the artwork with your selected guide configuration.
Customers will see the selected guide configuration displayed on the artwork.
For Expected size guides and Native Bounding Boxes, the viewer key shows guide information.
For Custom guides, the custom SVG overlay is displayed, but the key panel is not shown.
For double-sided custom guides, the flip will happen automatically on even pages.
Use different stroke colors for different guide types.
Keep stroke widths thin (1-2pt) to avoid obscuring artwork.
Use dashed lines for optional boundaries, solid lines for required boundaries.
Use transparent fills or no fills in your SVG.
Rely on strokes/outlines rather than filled shapes.
Create separate groups for different types of projects (for example, "Business Cards", "Brochures", "Labels").
Use clear, descriptive names for both groups and individual guides.
Include dimensions in the name if helpful (for example, "A4 Magazine Layout 210x297mm").
Use the description field to explain when and how to use each guide group.
Booklets with different inside/outside margins.
Magazines with gutter requirements.
Any multi-page document with asymmetric layouts.
Design your SVG guide as it should appear on odd-numbered pages (right-hand pages).
The system will automatically flip it horizontally for even-numbered pages (left-hand pages).
Test on a multi-page document to verify the flip works as expected.
Only send guides that are relevant to the customer's review.
Avoid sending technical guides that might confuse customers.
Ensure the guide has a valid SVG file uploaded.
Verify that dimensions (width/height) are specified.
Check that you've selected the guide via View > Guides > Custom guides.
Edit the guide and update the width/height dimensions.
Make sure you're using the correct measurement unit (mm vs inches).
Verify that Double-sided guide is checked in the overlay settings.
Ensure you're viewing a multi-page document.
Check that you're viewing an even-numbered page (page 2, 4, 6, etc.).
Verify that you selected the correct guide mode and guide in proof settings.
Ensure the proof has been sent/updated after changing overlay settings.
