I too wish ID had the "pixels" measurement unit. I still have ID4, so don't know if this has been included in ID5. But if not, for those of us who wish to create text boxes and other graphics for websites, it would certainly be a huge help. As it is, I have to find some online conversion tool to change picas or inches to pixels.

That's a fair answer to a load of nonsense ...

1. The original poster was not concerned about pixels, and in fact showed by his very feature request that he was acutely aware of the difference between pixels and real, actual, physical dimensions. The OP did not ask for, nor does he want, measurement in pixels -- in fact, he wants the exact opposite.

2. There is no measurement unit called "pixel". A "pixel" is not a defined distance, and there are no online conversion tools to convert between picas or inches and pixels. If there are, they are a load of nonsense as well.

3. Good news is that CS5 has, yeah!, "pixels" as measurement units. But ... since the pixel is not a really existing unit of measure, it's of no use at all and you might as well pretend (in your mind) what CS5 pretends on the screen: one pixel equals one point.

Hi Rick

Setting correct screen resolution is indeed a much needed feature in InDesign and has been on the wish list of print pros for a long time.

I'm glad Peter pointed out the Feature Request form, and I'll use it. (I would hope too that Adobe would put equal weight on request in this forum,otherwise it's pretty purposeless.)

For future reference for those who forget where Peter's link is, the Feature Requust form is here:

Adobe.com > Contact Abode (way at the bottom of the page) > Feedback > Request a Feature

For those not familiar with the issue, InDesign, sees screen resolution as 72 ppi. Unfortunately, screens haven't been 72 ppi for many years. (My screen, for example, is 104 ppi.)

The result is that documents displayed at "Actual Size" do not print at the size they appear at on screen. My 104 ppi screen displays an inch as .69". So everything is much smaller on screen that it actually prints.

This has many implications in print design that I won't list here.

Photoshop solves the issue simply (as, I believe, does Quark XPress; though someone else can confirm or correct). It provides a preference in Units and Rulers that allows you to enter your screen resolution. This allows you to see the image exactly at final output size.

Currently, the workaround is to view at the inverse of your screen error (Actual screen res / 72 x 100). In my case, this is 104/72x100 = 144%.

So, at 144%, my screen is displaying the document at actual size and I'm getting a realistic assessment of legibility and overall design.

Also, if you don't want to do math, you can do something like this:

var monitorWidth = Number(1680);
var monitorHeight = Number(1050);
var monitorDiag = Number(22);
 
if(app.documents.length){
    var myZoom = Math.round(((Math.sqrt(Math.pow(monitorWidth,2)+Math.pow(monitorHeight,2))/monitorDiag)/72)*100);
    app.activeWindow.zoomPercentage = myZoom;
}

Just change monitor data.

Hope that helps.

--

Marijan (tomaxxi)

http://indisnip.wordpress.com/

http://inditip.wordpress.com/

Thanks Peter and Marija

I'll try these out when there's no you-know-what hitting the fan around here.

A ready made actual size view will be a huge time saver.

Cheers

Tom

Indeed - an out of the box working solution is a better answer, to be sure.

I had never asked for the feature because, with Photoshop having the feature, I thought it was on the way in InDesign CS5.

Oh - and John - the other guys answered your not-remotely-dumb question as well or better than I could, so nuff said.

Cheers