Please show us the article or at least give us a more thorough explanation of what you think you're trying to accomplish. Aligning is a term applied to two completely separate functions in AE.

This article is about In Design and was published back in 2006. The same concept and control can be used in Illustrator but not in After Effects. The systems are simply not the same.

bogie

Align to path.

As LaRonde indicated, searching the help system turns up all of your options. But we are obviously having an English translation issue, too. I do not know what the proper terms are in your native lnaguage.

Had I paid close enough attention to your link to the tip, I too may have noticed it wasn't for AE.

There's always parenting if you need it.  It won't align automatically, but it will keep the children stuck to the parent layer once they're aligned.

Here's a personal suspicion why aligning things quickly in AE isn't that big a deal:

AE is an ANIMATION application.  Layers move.  They don't always maintain the same position as they would in Photoshop or Illustrator.  Thus, having such a feature isn't high on Adobe's list of Things To Do.

You're welcome to add it to the wishlist discussion but, in all of my many many years of working in After Effects, I have never needed an alignment function that is any more thorough than what is already built into the application. Nor ahve I ever seen the request come up in the many years I've participating here.

There are distribution plugins that can be obtained from several third party providers. Among them is a set of 3D tools where one selects a long list of objects/layers and selects Dsitribute:Sphere and they wonderfuly get assembled into sphere within a 3D comp.

I'm like really late to this party, but I had the same question and same problem, and I'm really surprised that there isn't a one-click way.  Just because AE is about motion doesn't mean it doesn't need tools make great layouts and alignments.  The whole point is it is motion DESIGN.  Why have ugly off-centered graphics?

For the record, I figured out a little trick that might help someone who likes to line up their objects WITHOUT having to move one-of-the-objects-that-you-already-so-carefully-placed...

Simply copy the position of the importantly-placed object (let's call it object A) that you don't want to move, and then select that and the other object you want to align and hit the center align (or whatever alignment you want).  BTW, if you are already lost and don't see the Align tab, you can find it the "Windows" menu.

Obviously object A & B are now aligned but are out of place. Now parent object B (that you didn't copy the keyframe from) to the important object A. Next, paste the original position back into the important object A, and both will return to the original spot.

Works beautifully for more than 2 objects and also text...

It's not as nice an abobe built-in solution, but hey at least it works.