PDF (adobe.com)

Change rulers and measurement units



You can change measurement units for the on‑screen rulers and for use in panels and dialog boxes; you can also change these settings at any time and temporarily override the current measurement units as you enter a value. By default, rulers begin measuring from the upper-left corner of a page or spread. You can change this by moving the zero point.

Changing the measurement units doesn’t move guides, grids, and objects, so when ruler tick marks change, they might not line up with objects aligned to the old tick marks.

Rulers in a document window

A.
Labeled tick marks

B.
Major tick marks

C.
Minor tick marks

You can set up different measurement systems for horizontal and vertical rulers. The system you select for the horizontal ruler governs tabs, margins, indents, and other measurements. Each spread has its own vertical ruler; however, all vertical rulers use the same settings you specify in the Units & Increments preferences dialog box.

The default units of measure for the rulers are picas (a pica equals 12 points). However, you can change custom ruler units and control where the major tick marks appear on a ruler. For example, if you change the custom ruler units for the vertical ruler to 12 points, a major ruler increment appears every 12 points (if such display is possible in the current magnification). The tick mark labels include your customized major tick marks, so when the ruler reads 3 in the same example, it marks the third instance of the 12‑point increment, or 36 points.

Vertical ruler using inches (left), and custom 12‑point increments (right)

Setting custom ruler increments in the vertical ruler is useful for lining up a ruler’s major tick marks with a baseline grid.

Show or hide rulers

 In Normal View Mode (View > Screen Mode > Normal), choose View > Show Rulers or Hide Rulers.

Change measurement units and rulers

  1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Units & Increments (Windows) or InDesign > Preferences > Units & Increments (Mac OS).

  2. To change the origin of the zero point, in the Origin menu under Ruler Units, do one of the following:

    • To set the ruler origin at the top-left corner of each spread, choose Spread. The horizontal ruler measures across the entire spread.

    • To set the ruler origin at the top-left corner of each page, choose Page. The horizontal ruler starts at zero for each page in a spread.

    • To set the ruler origin for multipage spreads on the top-left corner of the leftmost page, as well as at the top of the binding spine, choose Spine. The horizontal ruler measures from the leftmost page to the binding edge; and from the binding spine to the rightmost page.

  3. To change the measurement system used for rulers, dialog boxes, and panels, choose the desired system for Horizontal and Vertical, or choose Custom and type the number of points at which you want the ruler to display major tick marks.

    If you specify a measurement system other than points, the Increment Every baseline grid value is still displayed in points. This makes it easier to match text size and leading values, which are displayed in points.

  4. To change the value you want used for calculating points, specify the desired point size per inch for Points/Inch.

  5. Set any of the following Keyboard Increments:

    Cursor Key
    Controls the increment for the arrow keys when nudging objects.

    Size/Leading
    Controls the increment for increasing or decreasing the point size or leading using the keyboard shortcuts.

    Baseline Shift
    Controls the increment for shifting the baseline using the keyboard shortcuts.

    Kerning/Tracking
    Controls the increment for kerning and tracking using the keyboard shortcuts.

  6. Click OK.

You can also change ruler units by right-clicking (Windows) or Control-clicking (Mac OS) a ruler and choosing the units from the context menu. By right-clicking or Control-clicking at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical rulers, you can change the ruler units for both rulers at the same time.

Override default measurement units

You can specify a unit of measurement that is different from the default.

 Highlight the existing value in a panel or dialog box, and type the new value using the notation in the following table:

To specify:

Type these letters after the value:

Examples

Result

Inches

i

in

inch

"

5.25i

5.25in

5.25inch

5.25”

5 1/4 inches

Millimeters

mm

48mm

48 millimeters

Centimeters

cm

12cm

12 centimeters

Picas

p

3p

3 picas

Points

pt

p (before value)

6pt

p6

6 points

Picas and points

p (between values)

3p6

3 picas, 6 points

Ciceros

c

5c

5 ciceros

Agates

ag

5ag

agates