# Can Someone Explain Why the Align Tool Constantly Flips Bodies Instead of Just 'Aligning" Them with the Target?

**URL:** <https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844>\
**Category:** Modeling Questions\
**Created:** [March 4, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844 "2025-03-04T19:10:55Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 7\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Bad\_at\_Cad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@Bad\_at\_Cad](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Bad_at_Cad)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/1 "2025-03-04T19:10:55Z")

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I find the Align tool at best tedious to use as intended, i.e., picking a face on a body and then another target face-- 99.9% of the time, it either flips the body I want to move upside down or backwards or moves it somewhere else in the vertical plane. I know there is the little ‘badge’ that appears in the gadget to flip the body after ‘aligning’ it, but that does not always work to re-orient the body properly.

I’ve been using the workaround of adding a plane to the target face first, and then aligning to that-- and while that works flawlessly, it’s now adding extra steps to the workflow (adding the plane, then deleting the plane after aligning). When you have a ton of bodies to align, this is very time consuming and tedious.

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**Author:** ![jean-philippe2](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.shapr3d.com/jean-philippe2/32/27353_2.png) [@jean-philippe2](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/jean-philippe2)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 8:58pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/2 "2025-03-04T20:58:22Z")

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Hi,  
I can’t reproduce your issue.  
Can you share a screen capture ?

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**Author:** ![Bad\_at\_Cad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@Bad\_at\_Cad](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Bad_at_Cad)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 10:01pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/3 "2025-03-04T22:01:53Z")

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Sure. . . if I use just face-to-face “Align” you can see it flips the short rib backwards. If, instead, I add a plane to the target face on the larger rib, THEN use Align, it keeps the short rib oriented properly.

 ![Screenshot 2025-03-04 165506](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/shapr3d/original/3X/2/2/220d7d51cdc503aa47387948bae600282d286630.jpeg)  
 ![Screenshot 2025-03-04 165516](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/shapr3d/original/3X/7/d/7dcba72e1f91c85f10364c199015fb7618a784bb.jpeg)  
 ![Screenshot 2025-03-04 165607](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/shapr3d/original/3X/8/c/8c2fea41ccc54d0f291f9f85e8a3f97fee09bab7.jpeg)

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**Author:** ![TigerMike](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.shapr3d.com/tigermike/32/32650_2.png) [@TigerMike](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/TigerMike)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 10:14pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/4 "2025-03-04T22:14:02Z")

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You can also use body edges to align.

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**Author:** ![Bad\_at\_Cad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@Bad\_at\_Cad](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Bad_at_Cad)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 10:44pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/5 "2025-03-04T22:44:27Z")

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thank you for that tip!

I tried it out, and while it does indeed work for straight edges, it doesn’t appear to work for curved edges, like on the top of my rib design.

Nevertheless, for straight edges, it’s definitely an improvement over clicking on both faces and then “Align”.

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**Author:** ![TigerMike](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.shapr3d.com/tigermike/32/32650_2.png) [@TigerMike](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/TigerMike)\
**Post date:** [March 4, 2025, 11:14pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/6 "2025-03-04T23:14:12Z")

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Most welcome.  
For tricky alignment situations, I would make a dummy body in the appropriate position and align to it, then delete the dummy body.  
Another option is to use the **Translate** tool.

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**Author:** ![Bad\_at\_Cad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@Bad\_at\_Cad](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/u/Bad_at_Cad)\
**Post date:** [March 5, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://discourse.shapr3d.com/t/can-someone-explain-why-the-align-tool-constantly-flips-bodies-instead-of-just-aligning-them-with-the-target/36844/7 "2025-03-05T16:48:18Z")

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I’ve sadly had zero luck with the Translate tool. Every instance where I thought “oh, Translate should work for this” it doesn’t do what I expected it would do. So I guess I don’t quite get how to use it yet.