Custom Anchors

This support article applies to the latest operating system for Origin: Inverness. If your tool isn’t on Inverness, learn how to update its operating system here

Custom Anchors give you greater control over the placement of objects in your Workspace than is offered by Origin’s standard nine-point anchor system.

Origin’s standard anchor system provides you with nine points which are distributed evenly across the bounding box of your object. Learn more about Origin’s standard anchor system here.

Custom Anchors are ideal in situations where the standard anchor points do not allow you to place your object exactly where you need it in your workspace.

How to add a Custom Anchor to your designs

You can add Custom Anchors to your designs with any design software. To add a custom anchor, create a red right-angled triangle. The right angle vertex defines the location of the anchor point. The shorter leg of the right angle defines the X-axis and the longer leg defines the Y-axis.

If your workspace contains a Grid, then your custom anchor’s axes will be aligned to the Grid’s axes.

If your workspace does not contain a Grid (or if your Grid is hidden), then your anchor’s axes will be aligned to Origin’s screen. The X axis will be the screen’s horizontal and the Y axis will be the screen’s vertical.

Importing an object with a custom anchor

When you import an object which includes a custom anchor, Origin will default to that anchor when you are placing or copying the object. The anchor button will show an icon with a red triangle to indicate that the custom anchor is selected.

If you wish to change to a standard anchor point, just click the anchor button and select a new anchor point in the Anchor Selector box. If an object contains a Custom Anchor but it is not the active anchor, you can click the “use custom anchor” button to return to the Custom Anchor.