How does snap to grid works?

[jsv1]

Could somebody kindly explain how does the snap to grid option works?

I tried to enable/disable it under Tools > Options and in the options of my Text Body style, and this doesn’t make any visible effect.

What I expect is the following:

You have a document that consists of 2 pages. The second page is just text (12 pt), and the first page is the same text but with an image of some arbitary height that is inserted “as character” somewhere in middle, and the “align to grid” option should align the lines under this image on the same height as the lines on the second page. That is:

[Hrbrgr]

The idea according to their facts does not correspond to the actual function.

Here is a text excerpt from the help:

“Specifies the settings for the configurable grid on your document pages. This grid helps you determine the exact position of your objects. You can also set this grid in line with the “magnetic” snap grid.”
See also:

Grid

So you can’t use it to achieve a direct line offset.

[ajlittoz]

Aligning lines on facing pages is called registering in the typography world.

It is not based on some kind of grid which, as @Hrbrgr pointed out, applies only to objects (drawings, images, …) not to text.

Enabling register-true behaviour is closely related to styles. You need then understand how styles work and what they bring to you (formatting expressiveness, versatility, high control over your layout, …).

Basically two conditions are needed:

• a page style must be pre-conditioned for enabling registering on the pages controlled by this style

• a paragraph style must be set as a reference for grid spacing (its line spacing defines the distance between grid lines)

When theses conditions are met, all text in the page will be set on the nearest grid line and all vertical spacing will be a multiple of the grid quantum. This may need adjustments to heading styles to avoid bad-looking quantisation of space above and below the heading.

Details about styles configuration are covered in my recent answer to question pages-dont-end-aligned-why/70439.

PS: with register-true enabled, I’d suggest to anchor images To paragraph rather than As character to give you more flexibility in positioning and avoiding some bad-looking spacing “rounding” near the image.

[jsv1]

So if I use only the Default page style, I need to simply open its preferences and select the “Use page line-spacing” check box on the “Page” tab.

As I see, this option doesn’t really work well, there are many strange gaps here and there, but still thanks.

[ajlittoz]

If you experience “strange gaps”, your spacings above and below paragraphs are not consistent in paragraph styles other than your reference style. Using registering requires quite a thorough thinking about configuration of the various styles in use, notably the Heading n ones so that “grid-rounding” will not give bad-looking aspect.

One of the possibilities is to give all styles the same spacing above and below (optionally taking into account the difference in font size). This is a starting point; then you tune the spacing until you get a satisfactory aspect.

Remember that registering aligns everything on the virtual grid. You can’t get fractional spacing relative to the grid, i.e. a heading can’t be followed by a 0.5 or 1.5 grid spacing; it is 0, 1 or 2 grid steps.