How to align several objects within an area

I am trying to design a CD tray liner label. Within each of the spine areas, I want to centre a group of text objects (there is more than one text object per spine because they have different blending effects from each other). However, I can’t see any way of doing this. If I create a temporary shape the size of the spine area and try to centre the text objects within that shape, using the alignment tools, the text objects get centred individually rather than as a group, so they end up on top of each other. If I group the text objects, all but one of them disappears from view! It’s a straightforward thing to want to do, so there must surely be a way – any ideas?

"Dave Rado" wrote in message

I am trying to design a CD tray liner label. Within each of the spine areas, I want to centre a group of text objects (there is more than one text object per spine because they have different blending effects from each other). However, I can’t see any way of doing this. If I create a temporary shape the size of the spine area and try to centre the text objects within that shape, using the alignment tools, the text objects get centred individually rather than as a group, so they end up on top of each other. If I group the text objects, all but one of them disappears from view! It’s a straightforward thing to want to do, so there must surely be a way – any ideas?

Dave,

One way would be to show the rulers Ctrl+R and set the units to percent by double clicking on the ruler.
You can then drag guides out, both horizontal and vertical from the rulers, with the intersections at the centre of where you want to place your design elements.
Then you use the Transform tool Ctrl+T to show the centre point of the layer or selection.
This transformation is then dragged and the centre point dropped or nudged over the required guide intersection.

MH

Hi Mike

Mike Hyndman wrote:

"Dave Rado" wrote in message

I am trying to design a CD tray liner label. Within each of the spine areas, I want to centre a group of text objects (there is more than one text object per spine because they have different blending effects from each other). However, I can’t see any way of doing this. If I create a temporary shape the size of the spine area and try to centre the text objects within that shape, using the alignment tools, the text objects get centred individually rather than as a group, so they end up on top of each other. If I group the text objects, all but one of them disappears from view! It’s a straightforward thing to want to do, so there must surely be a way – any ideas?

Dave,

One way would be to show the rulers Ctrl+R and set the units to percent by
double clicking on the ruler.
You can then drag guides out, both horizontal and vertical from the rulers,
with the intersections at the centre of where you want to place your design
elements.
Then you use the Transform tool Ctrl+T to show the centre point of the layer
or selection.
This transformation is then dragged and the centre point dropped or nudged
over the required guide intersection.

MH

That works, thanks, though it’s very fiddly if the start of the area one wants to centre within shows up on the ruler as (in the example I tried) 12.73% (or 4.13cm) and the end of the area shows up as 27.15% (or 8.09cm). But it’s bettter than doing it entirely by eye, thanks. It gets me, though, that the "Link Grouped" command is so unhelpful – is it supposed to do anything useful? It isn’t even mentioned in Photoshop Help! If it behaved as one would expect then it would solve my problem!