How to (really) freely move object with my mouse

[francoisBA]

Hello,

I'm asking your help because I cannot find a solution to freely move/transform an object.

As you can see in the video I encounter two problems

- mouse move is 1px incremented

- I cannot snap to a text box

context :

mac 10.12

InDesign CC 2017.1 (12.1.0.56)

snap to ruler : on (magnétisme des repères : actif)

I don't understand / find any other snap option I should deactivate
I checked preferences / units and increments but I didn't find anything about mouse move incrementation

Thank you for your help

Best regards

Francois Bernard

[Jongware]

You have "Snap to Document Grid" switched on.

[rob day]

It's under View>Grids & Guides

[francoisBA]

Thank you rob day​ & [Jongware]​ for your answers

Here is a video explaining in details what keeps going on, with «snap to document grip» on/off

I hope this can help you better understand what happens and help (and other users) to find a solution

Best regards

[Jongware · Accepted solution]

A-ha, your new video shows something that .. you indeed already mentioned in your original post (sorry): you are working in pixels.

(Healthcare warning: OT Rant follows.

Please don't do that. Pixels Are A Lie. The size of your pixel is different from mine, and from just about everybody else who doesn't have your monitor and your graphic card and your personal screen resolution selection. Your pixel may very well be rectangular or hexagonal!

I've lamented the inclusion of "pixels" to InDesign right from the start. Ever since befuddled professional users have cried why! why! and befuddled newcomers wonder why InDesign's pixels are somehow "different" from those in Illustrator, Photoshop, Microsoft Paint, PNG images saved out of InDesign, and HTML browsers.

/End of OT Rant)

This appears to be a hidden feature of InDesign: as soon as you indicate you want to work in pixels by setting your rulers to this, the Pixel Grid automatically jumps into action. And you cannot switch it off, presumably because Adobe reasoned that "that is after all what you want if you are going to work with pixels": there is no practical "half-pixel" or smaller unit that you'd be able to use, as it goes against the practical use of "pixels" as a unit!

Quick solution: switch your rulers to a more stable, Real World measurement unit.

[rob day]

Healthcare warning: OT Rant follows.

Jongware, at the risk of raising your blood pressure I use pixels all the time when I'm wire framing or designing for HTML. Pixels in InDesign and Illustrator are a ruler unit measurement, and have no relationship to image resolution—their pages are vector objects and have no resolution anyway. The static measured pixel unit of 1/72" doesn't represent a pixel size, it's an output dimension.

So if I want to wireframe for web, it's a given that there will have to be an export to pixels at some point. The static pixel measurement unit isn't absolutely necessary to export to a specific pixel dimension, but it makes it easier. I don't have to do any fancy math to design an 800 x 600 pixel page, I simply set up the document to 800x600 pixels and export to 72 ppi. I could set up the document using inches or millimeters but would have to get out my calculator to figure out what the aspect ratio and export res should be to get the desired 800x600 pixel export. And then there would be the difficulty of translating page item dimensions into pixels relative to the intended export pixel dimensions.

Before pixels I used to use points, but it isn't intuitive that the pixel and point unit are in fact the same.

As for snapping I do generally want to be on the whole pixel, but if i want to allow a partial pixel and anti-alias it on export I'll set up my keyboard increment to something like .5px and nudge.

[francoisBA]

Thank you !

It solved my problem

It's weird because, while 0,1px doesn't exist, InDesign will tolerate positions like x = 12,345 px but won't allow to move freely

I switched to mm and the mouse moves where free again

It won't be a big deal, as I can understand the logic behind this process and will now carefully check rules unit in my future modifications.

But it would be more logical to go further in the process and so lock mouse move AND positions in "px" mode.

(now, only mouse move are locked which is confusing)

Thank you all for your quick answer, it was really helpful

[rob day]

But it would be more logical to go further in the process and so lock mouse move AND positions in "px" mode.

(now, only mouse move are locked which is confusing)

I think there is an assumption that you would only use pixel units when designing for screens. While you can force the xy position to partial pixels, when the InDesign document gets exported to its pixel dimensions you would have to choose whether to alias or anti-alias. In either case the edge of the page item won't align on the partial pixel.