In Designer, is there any way to duplicate objects in a grid pattern without manually duplicating each object?

[Blake_S]

I already know of:

1) Power duplicate - requires to duplicate each object, and overall a very bad and slow way to duplicate to a grid, because if you need to change the spacing between objects, you need to redo everything from scratch.

2) Align - space horizontally/vertically, uncheck "auto distribute", and then select the distance between objects.
This still requires manually duplicating each object, however it does allow to change distance between objects instantly.
This works for one row or column, but then goes completely insane when I try to replicate said column/row using the same method into a grid - all objects end up at arbitrary distances and most fly over the edge of the document entirely. So I can't even make a grid using this method.

Any other ideas?

In Publisher if I remember correctly you could make a grid layout, adjust it by dragging, drop an object into a cell, and it is auto-replicated in all other cells.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Blake_S

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, Blake_S said:

This works for one row or column, but then goes completely insane when I try to replicate said column/row using the same method into a grid - all objects end up at arbitrary distances and most fly over the edge of the document entirely. So I can't even make a grid using this method.

Can you tell us more about how you're trying to do it?

When I've done it, I was easily able to Align a row of the objects, then select the row and use Power Duplicate to make the grid of rows.

[Blake_S]

1 minute ago, walt.farrell said:

Can you tell us more about how you're trying to do it?

When I've done it, I was easily able to Align a row of the objects, then select the row and use Power Duplicate to make the grid of rows.

I used the same method 2nd time - "Align - space horizontally/vertically, uncheck "auto distribute", and then select the distance between objects" - only used vertical alignment when trying to duplicate a row. Your version works, but I already listed the disadvantages - if you want to change distance, need to redo everything, and there is no instant preview.

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, Blake_S said:

I used the same method 2nd time - "Align - space horizontally/vertically, uncheck "auto distribute", and then select the distance between objects" - only used vertical alignment when trying to duplicate a row. Your version works, but I already listed the disadvantages - if you want to change distance, need to redo everything, and there is no instant preview.

There are no other functions supported by Designer as far as I know.

As you mentioned, you could use Publisher, which supports Tables.

[Old Bruce]

I would use Aligning and Grouping and power duplicating to get the first instance of the grid of objects. Then when it comes time to resize them I would use the Transform Each option of the Node tool's context menu. I could then use the move tool to resize the overall size of the grid of objects.

Note that this works with curves not rectangles and other "shapes" etc.

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Blake_S said:

In Publisher if I remember correctly you could make a grid layout, adjust it by dragging, drop an object into a cell, and it is auto-replicated in all other cells.

You possibly mean the Data Merge feature? Indeed this is a quick way to get a kind of table auto-filled with the items you create in its top left cell.

1 hour ago, Blake_S said:

Align - space horizontally/vertically, uncheck "auto distribute", and then select the distance between objects.

I agree, indeed the use of the Align pop-up window can be quite annoying if I you want to set the horizontal + vertical distance of objects in more than 1 column and row. Not only because the window gets reset each time I leave it but also because the entire grid gets confused if I want to set the rows AND columns of a grid in 1 go.

Regardless of the usability or sense, respectively depending on your needs the Constraints feature may be helpful. It can be used as workaround for the missing feature to adjust identical or differing distances between objects by dragging but without scaling them. For instance: