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Anchoring

Anchoring lets you attach frames to the page or to other frames in your Smart Template, creating a dynamic layout that adapts to different sizes.

Imagine placing a logo 10% from the top and 15% from the left of your design—anchoring makes this easy to maintain across varying layouts.

Logo frame on the Default layout, with 10%, 15%, 64% and 59% offsets to the page edges

Benefits of Anchoring

Why position a frame relative to the page or another frame? Anchoring is essential in GraFx Studio, where automation is key to generating multiple design variants efficiently. Anchoring allows elements to reposition automatically when layouts change, significantly speeding up variant creation and maintaining consistent design.

Anchor to Page

Anchoring a frame to the page is the most straightforward anchoring concept.

This method anchors a frame to a specific side of the page, usually in a relative position. When you place a frame on the page, anchoring records its position relative to the page, so it remains consistent even if the page size changes.

The same logo frame on a wider page, still holding its 10% top and 15% left page offsets

Anchor to Frame

Anchoring a frame to another frame allows you to set precise relationships between elements.

For example, if a text frame is anchored to a logo frame, the text will maintain the same offset from the logo, even if the page size changes or when the position or size of the logo frame changes.

Headline text frame anchored to the logo frame, with a 71 offset marked between the two

Inheritance

Anchoring settings follow the Inheritance Model across sub-layouts, ensuring consistent positioning.

When creating sub-layouts, anchoring maintains relative positions across different page sizes. In the example below, a default layout uses a square format where all frames are positioned relative to the page.

Square Default layout with the property image selected and both anchors set to Relative (%)

For a landscape sub-layout, anchoring automatically adapts frame positions to the new page size, preserving the original layout's relative spacing.

Landscape sub-layout inheriting from Default, the property image now 1920 px wide

A vertical sub-layout applies the same principle—only the page size changes, while the frames maintain their relative positioning.

Vertical sub-layout inheriting from Default, the property image 1080 by 928 px

If you want to make specific adjustments, you can manually move a frame or change the anchoring type.

Doing so breaks inheritance with the parent layout, and the new values appear in yellow in the properties panel, indicating overrides.

When moving a frame, these settings will also override the inheritance model:

  • X & Y
  • Width & Height
  • Rotation
  • Horizontal & Vertical anchoring + all its settings
  • Auto-grow + all its settings 1

A moved text frame with overrides in yellow, Horizontal set to Left and the reset menu open

What’s Next?

See the How To set Anchoring page in the Guides section

Anchoring is powerful on its own, but it becomes even more effective when combined with other Smart Template features:

  1. Available soon! Mentioned here because it will also override inheritance when available. ↩