Set your preferences

Configure your preferences for Google Web Designer by selecting Edit > Preferences from the top menu. Access each set of preferences by clicking the tab on the left.

• General preferences
• Design view preferences
• Components preferences
• Code view preferences
• Advanced preferences

You can restore each set of preferences to its defaults by clicking Reset to defaults.

General preferences

General

Setting	Description
Launch with recent open document	Check this box to skip the welcome dialog when you launch Google Web Designer, and start with your most recently opened document.
Remember Selection tool options across launches	Check this box to keep your Selection tool options from resetting whenever you restart Google Web Designer.

My Templates

Setting	Description
Location	Click the Browse button to browse your computer and select where custom template files should be saved. The folder must be on a mounted drive (i.e., accessible through your computer's file system). If you change this path, existing custom templates will no longer appear in the Template Gallery under "My Templates". You can manually move custom template files to the new location to restore them to the gallery.
Reset to default path	Click the Reset location to default button to change the location to the original path.

New file dialog defaults

Setting	Description
Ad type	Select the default ad type for new documents.
Environment	Select the default ad environment for new documents. Only appropriate options for your default ad type are available.

Design view preferences

Design view preferences set your default selections in the View menu for new documents. In some cases (noted below), these preferences also affect your current settings.

Design view

Setting	Description
Outline	Select your preference for outlines for elements in the document workspace: Label - Display a dashed border and a label with the element type and ID for every element that's not the selected element. Outlines only - Display a dashed border around every element that's not the selected element. Off - Display no outlines or labels for unselected elements. This preference is universal across Web Designer: it changes the settings for new and open documents, and also reflects selections made in the View menu.
Show rulers	Check this box to make the horizontal and vertical rulers visible by default. This preference is a default: it changes the settings for new documents and documents in which a ruler preference wasn't explicitly set, but doesn't override selections made in the View menu for individual documents.

Snap and grid

Setting	Description
Snap	Check this box to automatically align objects as you're drawing, moving, and resizing them. Customize snapping behavior with the following options: Threshold - How close the object must be to the snap target, in pixels, for snapping to occur. Parent and siblings only - Snap only to the parent element and sibling elements. Grid - Snap to the grid lines when they're visible. Objects - Snap to the edges, corners, and centerpoints of other objects. Alignment - Snap into alignment with other objects' edges or centerpoints. Guides - Snap to the ruler guides when they're visible. Equal size - Snap to the same width or height as another object. Equal spacing - Snap to the same spacing as between two other objects. Learn more about snapping. This preference is universal across Web Designer: it changes the settings for new and open documents, and also reflects selections made in the View menu.
3D grid	Check this box to display the grid for the plane that's nearest to parallel to your view. This preference is a default: it changes the settings for new documents and documents in which a 3D grid preference wasn't explicitly set, but doesn't override selections made in the View menu for individual documents. Grid size - Specify the spacing between grid lines, between 10 and 1000 pixels. The default is 50 pixels. The specified grid size is used for all documents with a visible 3D grid.

Outliner

Setting	Description
Sort elements in DOM order	Check this box to change the listing order of elements in the Outliner to match the DOM (Document Object Model). When the box is unchecked, the Outliner displays elements in the same order as the layers in the Advanced mode timeline.

Guides

Setting	Description
Color	Set the color of guides.

Components preferences

3D assets

Setting	Description
Component	Select the component to use when importing a 3D asset. Swirl (to build Swirl creatives for Display & Video 360) 3D Model Viewer
Automatically delete unused textures when saving GLB files	Check this box to delete unused textures from the GLB file when you save the component. This can reduce the size of your GLB file, but the image files for the textures will be permanently deleted.

Code view preferences

Code view preferences control the behavior and appearance of Code view.

Setting	Description
Color theme	Select your preferred color theme for the Code view workspace and syntax highlighting. You can preview each theme.

Formatting options

Code formatting options take effect when you open a file, or after you make a change in Design view and switch to Code view. You can preview these settings in the code sample that's displayed above in the Preferences dialog.

Setting	Description
Pad parentheses	Check this box to pad text within parentheses with spaces.
End file with newline	Check this box to include a newline character at the end of the file.
Newline between CSS selectors	Check this box to include a newline character between CSS selectors when multiple selectors are specified for the same CSS rule.
Newline between CSS rules	Check this box to include insert a newline character between CSS rules.
Indent size	Set the number of spaces or tabs to use for one indent.
Brace style	Select the way you want braces in JavaScript to be formatted. Collapse - Braces are inline. Expand - Braces are on their own line. End expand - Closing braces are on their own line.
Script and style tag indentation	Select how you want to start indenting code inside <script> and <style> tags. Normal - Code indentation starts one level deeper than the enclosing tags. Keep - Code indentation starts at the same level as the enclosing tags. Separate - Code starts without indentation.
Wrapped attributes style	Select when you want to wrap attributes in HTML tags to a new line. Auto - Attributes are automatically wrapped if they exceed the line length. Force - Each attribute is on a new line.
Wrap lines	Check this box to hard-wrap lines that exceed the specified length in characters.

Editor options

Code view editor options take immediate effect upon saving.

Setting	Description
Key map	Select a key map to use the functionality associated with that text editor. Default Emacs Sublime Vim
Show trailing spaces	Check this box to make spaces at the end of a line visible.
Highlight selection matches	Check this box to highlight matching code based on your cursor or selection.
Indentation	Check this box to automatically indent new lines.
Auto close brackets	Check this box to automatically add a closing bracket when you type an opening bracket.
Auto close tags	Check this box to automatically add a closing tag when you type an opening HTML tag.
Auto completion	Check this box to automatically show auto completion suggestions as you type.
Use spaces for tabs	Check this box to convert new tabs into spaces.
Show minimap	Check this box to display a miniature view of your document.

Environment

Setting	Description
Remember zoom percentage	Check this box to keep the Code view zoom level from resetting each time you launch Google Web Designer.

Advanced preferences

Advanced preferences affect the entire application. In some cases (noted below), changes take effect only after you restart Google Web Designer.

Logging

Setting

Description

Enable verbose logging

Check this box to generate detailed logs in the following location on your computer: Windows: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Google\Google Web Designer\logs Mac: /Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Google/Web Designer/logs Linux: ~/.local/share/google-web-designer/logs/ Turn on this setting only temporarily to troubleshoot an issue. Changes to this preference take effect after restarting Google Web Designer.

Application zoom

Setting	Description
Override default zoom	Check this box to set a zoom level different than the one Google Web Designer automatically detects for your monitor. Zoom percentage: Enter a percentage between 70% and 200%. Changes to this preference take effect after restarting Google Web Designer.