Open the panel where you want the guides, such as the Composition, Layer, or Footage panel.
Last updated on
Sep 9, 2026
Learn how to create, edit, organize, and share guides in Adobe After Effects to align elements precisely across your projects.
Guides in After Effects help you align layers, text, and other elements precisely within the Composition, Layer, and Footage panels. You can position guides by pixel or percentage, pin them to any edge, assign colors to keep them organized, and edit them at any time.
Guides in After Effects are closely aligned with the behavior in Adobe Premiere, creating a consistent experience when you move between applications.
After Effects supports the following:
- Percentage-based guides: Allows guides to be positioned relative to the composition or view rather than fixed pixel values, making layouts resilient to resolution and aspect-ratio changes.
- Pin guides: Allows guides to be pinned to the bottom or right edges (in addition to top and left), ensuring layouts remain stable as dimensions shift.
- Per-guide color control: Improves visibility and organization by allowing individual guides to be color-coded.
- Guide editing: Enables right-clicking to adjust its position, change units between pixels and percent, modify pinning behavior, and assign a color. Additionally, importing and exporting guides no longer convert percentage-based guides into pixel values, making it easier to reuse responsive layouts across applications.
The latest updates to the guides introduce percentage-based positioning, edge pinning, custom guide colors, and enhanced guide-editing controls.
In After Effects, guides are view-specific, so they can exist separately in the Composition, Footage, and Layer panels. The following examples show how you can use different guides in different views and panels within the same project to support specific tasks:
Guides in the Composition panel
The Layer panel has guides added to it to help align elements within that specific layer only.
Guides in the Footage panel
The Footage panel has guides added to align source footage without affecting the Composition panel.
Note
New guide scripting accessors are now available. Learn how to control guide visibility and behavior in your scripts — current beta additions and original scripting support.
Add guides to a view
Select View > Show Rulers to make the rulers visible.
To create a guide line, drag from the top ruler to add a horizontal guide, and from the left ruler to add a vertical guide. You can move it by dragging it using the Selection tool.
Right-click the guides and select Edit Guide to launch the Edit Guide dialog box.
Alternatively, you can also go to View > Add Guide to access the Add Guide dialog box.
Adjust the Position value to specify the exact location of the guide within the view, measured in Pixels or Percentage from the selected reference edge. The available options vary depending on the selection in the Orientation dropdown menu.
For vertical guides:
- Left: When a vertical guide is set to Left, its distance is measured from the left edge of the frame. It maintains the same distance from the left side, even as the frame widens or narrows.
- Right: When a vertical guide is set to Right, its distance is measured from the right edge of the frame. It maintains the same distance from the right side, even if the frame size changes.
For horizontal guides:
- Top: When a horizontal guide is set to Top, its distance is measured from the top edge of the frame. It maintains the same distance from the top, even if the frame becomes taller or shorter.
- Bottom: When a horizontal guide is set to Bottom, its distance is measured from the bottom edge of the frame. It maintains the same distance from the bottom, even if the frame size changes.
Select how the guide position is measured by using the Unit dropdown menu, and then choose one of the following:
- Pixels: For fixed numeric placement
- Percent: For proportional placement relative to the frame size
Select Pixels or Percent as a unit to define how the guide position is measured relative to the composition.
Use the Color option to set the display color of the selected guide to improve visibility and organization.
Use the Orientation dropdown menu to specify the direction in which the guide is drawn:
- Horizontal: A Guide that runs left to Right and can be used to align objects along the y-axis (top-to-bottom positioning)
- Vertical: A Guide that runs top to bottom and is used to align objects along the x-axis (left-to-right positioning).
Select OK.
Here are a few things to know when working with guides:
- Guide positions always show the unit: The values display as 150 px or 50%, so you always know whether your guide is placed in pixels or percentage, without having to guess.
- Switching units doesn’t move your guide: If you change from pixels to percent (or back) in the Add Guide or Edit Guide dialog box, the guide stays exactly where it is. Only the way the position is expressed changes, not the actual placement.
- A live readout appears while dragging: When you drag a guide, a small label appears on screen showing its exact position (for example, 150 px or 50%) as you move it. If the guide is pinned to an edge, it also shows a Pinned label to indicate it is anchored.
- Use keyboard shortcuts when dragging:
- Hold Alt (Windows) / Option (macOS) while dragging to instantly switch between pixels and percent.
- Hold Ctrl (Windows) / Command (macOS) while dragging to toggle a guide between pinned and unpinned. The guide stays in place visually, and only its anchor edge changes.
Visibility controls
- To show or hide safe zones, grids, guides, or rulers, select the Choose grid and guides options button and choose the appropriate item, or use a menu command or keyboard shortcut in the View menu.
- To toggle between showing and hiding the safe zones, Alt-click (Windows) or Option-click (macOS) the Choose grid and guides options button.
Snapping behavior
Select View > Snap To Grid or View > Snap To Guides to make layer edges and mask edges snap to grids or guides.
Ruler controls
- To set the zero point (origin) for the rulers, drag the crosshair from the intersection of the two rulers (in the upper-left corner) into the composition area.
- Reset the zero point by double-clicking the intersection of the rulers.
The position of the pointer measured from the new zero point is shown in the Info panel as X and Y coordinates.
Import and export guides
After Effects allows you to save guide lines and import them into other After Effects comps, projects, and layers. You can also export these guides to Premiere, where the editors can use them to maintain consistency in projects.
To import existing guides into After Effects, select View > Import Guides. To export guides, select View > Export Guides.
When you export guides, it creates a template file (.guides) that you can share or import into another project or into a different composition, layer, or footage view within the same project. A guides template file contains JSON data that records the guide attributes. After Effects exports all guides in the current view. Importing guides adds the guides to the current view. It retains any existing guides in the view.
You can import After Effects guides into Premiere 13.1 and import Premiere guides into After Effects. The latest After Effects 26.5x version now preserves guide colors from Premiere and retains the guide's Pixel or Percent positioning mode, including pinned and unpinned behavior.
Guide colors change to the color defined in Preferences > Grids & Guides.
- Guides defined either by percentage or pinned to the opposite side (right or bottom) are placed at the appropriate pixel value for the current viewer, but are not percentage-based or pinned if the composition, layer, or footage dimensions change.
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