How to make a grid in Keynote with alignment guides + Pro Tips!

6 min readMay 10, 2020

I’ve always wanted an easy way to create grids in Keynote. Grids make it easier to design consistent slide layouts. Unfortunately, there’s no easy ‘create grids’ shortcut in Keynote, yet… but for now, here’s how you can do it yourself.

Want a shortcut? Buy me a coffee and download this Modular Grid Template for Keynote.

In this tutorial, you will learn how to create a 12-column / 6-row modular grid, with perfect 120pt modules (white space), and a comfortable margin. I prefer to have a perfect square modular grid because I often use images that are cropped to squares. Also, it becomes much easier to align to the grid when using the ‘guide snapping feature’ (it’s actually not called that…)

Step 1: Creating the columns

Create a new, basic 16:9 (1920x1080) wide document size. (Optional) Select the ‘Blank’ master slide, so there aren’t any elements on the slide. Otherwise, go ahead and delete any objects, so you have a blank slide.

‘Blank’ master slide selected.

Next, add a square shape and change the size to 16pt width by 1080pt height. Go to the arrange panel and change the size from 100pt to 120pt.

This blue rectangle will become our gutter measurement.

Duplicate this rectangle 14 times to create 15 total rectangle, then distribute them horizontally.

A total of 15 rectangles (gutters).

Drag one of the rectangles to align to the left side of the canvas (X:0pt, Y:0pt) and one rectangle on the right side (X:1904pt, Y:0pt). Then select all, align>middle, and distribute>horizontally. After that, move them all to the top of the slide (Y:0pt).

You should now have something that looks like this:

At this point, we have 14 columns (white areas). The two outer columns will be designated as margins, to be used for things like page numbers.

Step 2: Creating the rows

Duplicate one of the rectangles, and change the size so the height is 16pt and width is 1920pt. To make it easier to see, I will also change the color of the horizontal rectangles to red.

The red rectangle will become the (gutter) measurement for the rows.

Now duplicate it 8 times, so there are 9 total red rectangles.

9 total horizontal red rectangles.

To create the most ideal sized grid, move the top and bottom rectangle outside the slide area by 12pts. Align to top or bottom, and then nudge it an additional 12pts by either holding Shift+Up/Down (10pts), and then nudging an additional 2pts, or simply input the numbers in the arrange panel.

The top horizontal rectangle should be positioned at (X:0pt, Y:-12pt) and the bottom horizontal rectangle should be (X:0pt, Y:1076pt)

You should now be looking at something like this:

Perfect 120pt modular grid.

If you’ve done this correctly so far, you should be able to create a new 120pt square shape and fit it perfectly within any of these modules (white areas).

This will feel very satisfying when you have the ‘guide snapping’ turned on. To turn on ‘snapping’ in Keynote, go to preferences>rulers and turn on “Show guides at object center” and “Show guides at object edges.” Additionally, while you’re in the ruler preferences, you can also change the color of your alignment guides and master guides, if you prefer.

It’s so beautiful…

Now you have a ‘model’ for your perfect 120pt modular grid. To make it more convenient, create a new Master Slide and copy/paste this onto the slide. Go to “Edit Master Slide.”

Then, to make it look a bit more like a grid, change the styling of the shapes to 0.5pt outlines, and to make the next step easier, change the outline color to a turquoise (this will improve the contrast against the yellow alignment guides later). To make the outlines display better, I’ve also changed the background color fill to black.

Changed the background color to black so it’s easier to see the thin borders.

Step 3: Creating the actual grid

Now comes the tedious part… To create a useful grid from this, you will need to manually add Alignment Guides to each outline on the slide (don’t worry, it will be worth it!). All except for the lines on the edges of the slide because you won’t need those. In fact, you can delete the shapes at the edges of the slide (4 total).

To add alignment guides, bring up the rulers (CMD+R) or view>show rulers.

Then, begin dragging in rulers one at a time. Unfortunately, Keynote does not seem to have a function where the alignment guides actually snap to the objects on the slide. You will simply need to use your best precision to make it as accurate as possible. To make this easier, zoom in as much as you possibly can (Shift+Cmd+>)

Sped up 1000x…

At the end of this process, you can delete the underlying shapes, since they were only used as references, and you should have alignment guides that look like this:

The alignment guides have now become a modular grid!

If you want, you can add an additional set of alignment guides in the margins. I like to use 60pt of space, measured from the inner guides. This will be convenient for adding page numbers or other elements that you don’t want interfering with the main content.

Pro Tip: Creating the keyboard shortcuts

So, now that you have your ‘grid’ created. Here’s a bonus tip for making it super easy to toggle the grid on and off. By default, Keynote does not have a shortcut key command for showing or hiding the master guides. But you can create a custom shortcut for this.

Go to your system preferences>keyboard>shortcuts>app shortcuts and click the [+] button to add a new shortcut. Select Keynote from the application dropdown, and enter “Show master guides” in the Menu Title input, and then decide on what shortcut you want to use to toggle master guides.

Be aware that you should not use any shortcuts which are already in use in Keynote. Personally, I find Ctrl+Opt+G to be easy to remember and use.

Repeat this for the ‘Hide master guides’ shortcut. I recommend using the same shortcut key command for both, so you can easily toggle the master guides on and off.

That’s it!

Now you can close the window, go back to Keynote, and click ‘Done’ for editing the master slide. Now when you’re back in the slide view, try out the new shortcut! Magic! Also, with the master guides turned off, you will still be able to snap objects to the guides. Conveniently though, you won’t be able to move the guides by mistake… which frequently happens when using the regular alignment guides directly on the slide.

Now you can rename the Master Slide to something like ‘Master Grid.’ And whenever you start a new Keynote document, you can easily open it, drag the slide into your new document, and you have a grid ready to go!

Since you made it all the way through this article, you’ve earned this 50% Off discount code: give2me. Use it to download the grid template from here.

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Made in Keynote
Made in Keynote

Written by Made in Keynote

Keynote templates for creative freelancers, teams, and agencies.

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