Independent gutter sizes for rows and column guides

[bobwal]

It would be handy if Designer had the functionality to set row height and gutter height, specifically to create an 8pt grid system. Currently there is only one gutter size setting for both columns and rows. Figma does quite a nice job of this. 

Thanks

[bobwal]

I figured out a bit of a workaround for this using a combination of columns and grid, might help some one. It's pretty sweet.

[loukash]

If you have Publisher, you can also make use of its Master Page layers that can contain individual sets of regular guides that you can turn on and off as needed.
Note that it won't work in an Artboard environment, as an Affinity document can be either artboard or page/canvas based.

[debraspicher]

I would like to be able to do the same. As an alternative, I setup the gutters in grid as well but closer to grid paper. I do wish we could have snapping behavior for center-on gutters, but it can be made quickly by adding guides...

Quick grid can also do rows with gutters, but it's heavily dependent on keyboard modifier settings in Preferences. Regardless, it's possible to create a workaround with this as well and just use distribute options to ensure accurate gutters.

 

[Rondem]

+1 for separate gutter

[matisso]

Yes. Please. I’ve had a draft concerning exactly this issue sitting for quite a while now… 😉 It’s such a bad idea to have just a single gutter available (same goes for the Data Merge Layout tool, BTW) and a lot of similar “details” peppered around still keep this product line in a semi-professional department for me. No amount AI powered additions will change that if absolutely fundamental functions are crippled like this and there isn’t even a way to alleviate this via scripting…

The only half-a**ed solution in APub I found was, somewhat related to what @loukash suggested, to create a temporary column guides setup on your master page – whether it's going to be rows or columns depends whether you need fewer rows or columns in your intended grid, because that means less stupid labour for you in the next step  – then use that as a template to manually (duh! 😠) create ruler guides (because there's no way to quickly create a set of guides with predefined parameters either), then finally switch back rows ↔️ columns, adjusting the second gutter for your needs.

Example: if I have a landscape document and I know that I will need a grid of 10 columns by 5 rows, I'll first create a temporary 5-row column guide layout, then recreate this by hand using ruler guides (obviously I’d rather do that for 5 rows than 10 columns), then I’ll change column guides back to 10 columns with an intended gutter. But that is awfully tedious, offers no flexibility at all in case of any document changes, and overall feels like this was early 80’s. The software is supposed to do such simple and tedious stuff for you, right?

Cheers,
Matt

 

[matisso]

On 1/23/2024 at 12:45 PM, Rondem said:

+1 for separate gutter

Hm, respectfully, no. This is reinventing the wheel and doing it wrong – it makes little sense as the related inputs are visually detached from their counterparts. Also, the labels might be confusing for some.

Below is a window made solely for creating “regular” guides layout (HINT, SERIF, WINK WINK) in Adobe. This groups related inputs and leaves practically no room for interpretation.

  

 

[matisso]

LOL. I did not realize that this was started on February 2023 rather than 2025. How come this hasn’t been yet addressed, nor even replied to by Serif is beyond me…

[loukash]

12 hours ago, matisso said:

How come this hasn’t been yet addressed, nor even replied to by Serif

Likely because it's in the Feedback section:

Quote

Feedback & Suggestions

Discussions about things you think will make Affinity even better. Any suggestions about the software go in these forums

---

Suggestions, Discussions & Ideas

If you have any suggestions about how to make our apps better, please post them here. We read every idea which is posted, and in fact since launching Affinity we have added 100s of new features and improvements based on customer feedback

Just a few things to bear in mind:

• Please search first, it may well be that you have a suggestion that others also want. If so add your feelings to their thread.
• If you cannot find your idea, make a new post. Try to keep your post as concise as possible, and for the title of your post to describe the request as best you can.
• Please just do one suggestion per thread. If your post title is “Here’s a few ideas to improve Affinity Publisher” you’ll be asked to split them up.
• Please understand we can’t possibly do everything which is requested, but we try to make the best calls we can in terms of prioritising our work. Constantly nagging or being overly ranty that we haven’t implemented one of your suggestions will not help your cause, and such posts will be deleted.

[Petar Petrenko]

On 2/9/2023 at 8:24 PM, bobwal said:

It would be handy if Designer had the functionality to set row height and gutter height, specifically to create an 8pt grid system. Currently there is only one gutter size setting for both columns and rows.

I asked for this feature long ago, too, but still no answer.