grid-margin-safe-zone-alignmentlisted

# Grid, Margin and Safe-Zone Alignment ## When to use Use this skill when elements drift past the template's margins or ignore the layout grid. Symptoms include titles that start at a different x position on every slide, content that runs to the slide edge on some slides and stops short on others, and objects nudged a few pixels off the placeholder so nothing lines up across the deck. Run this after placeholders are in order, so you are aligning real placeholders rather than rogue boxes. ## What it does It re-establishes the template's grid and margins across the deck: a single left margin, a single right margin, a consistent top position for titles, a consistent content top, and a safe zone that nothing important crosses. The output is a deck where, if you flipped through it, the title and content blocks would hold their position from slide to slide. ## Method A template defines an implicit grid: the margins, the column structure, and the safe zone that keeps content away from the trim and away from any footer band. The job is to make every slide honor it. 1. **Recover the template's margins.** Read the placeholder positions on the master and layouts. The title placeholder's left edge defines the left margin. Its right edge (or the content placeholder's) defines the right margin. The content placeholder's top defines the content top. Record these as the canonical values. 2. **Set guides to the margins.** Turn on guides (Alt then F9) and place vertical guides at the l