To provide the best experiences, we and our partners use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us and our partners to process personal data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site and show (non-) personalized ads. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Click below to consent to the above or make granular choices. Your choices will be applied to this site only. You can change your settings at any time, including withdrawing your consent, by using the toggles on the Cookie Policy, or by clicking on the manage consent button at the bottom of the screen.
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Another reason it may change is because of a script. If you run the script “corner effects” (to change just one corner) it will change all of your units to points unless you type in a different measurement.
Don’t forget you can right-click on the rulers too to change the units of measurements.
Don’t forget, also, that you can simply type in “in”, “pt”, etc after your value to enter measurements in the system you prefer – regardless of what is set in Preferences.
Thanks for the ‘other’ solution, Fritz. I also have my units change on me occasionally, but the first answer here didn’t explain the issue for me. Your ‘script’ suggestion solves my problem. :)
You can also set the default preferences for the program by altering any preferences BEFORE any documents are open. This way everytime you start a new document the units will already be set to your favorite!
I can see this is an old thread, but I’m still having problems with this and although the shortcut is useful I can’t understand why occasionally when creating a new document the units revert back to picas. I haven’t used the script mentioned and I have set the default units without any documents open several times. This works for a while and every now and again the picas crop up – very annoying. I’m using CS2 so I wonder if this is a bug. Does anyone have any further thoughts?
Thx in advance
Jim
I am having the same issue as Jim– I set the pref with no doc open and yet it seems to want to revert to picas. Similarly, I made a default startup doc and it keeps reverting to its default. Not a big deal, granted, but a slight annoyance and seems like it ought to be soluble. There ARE bugs in my indd app, so I’m gonna write this off as one till I hear otherwise. –Ty
Thank god I found this thread. The picas were driving me nuts when trying to open a new docu. in Cs5
Does anyone know how to change the units of measurement in the print dialog box? Mine are stuck on points and I would really like them to be inches. I’ve tried changing some preference settings, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
In CS5, quit InDesign. You can save your documents.
Now open CS5 and BEFORE you open any document go to the InDesign menu>Preferences>Units & Increments and change the Ruler Units settings in Horizontal and Vertical to whatever measurement you like.
Now when you open new documents it should be in that measurement.
Mine has changed back to picas twice in about a year and I don’t know why but when it’s happened I just do this and it’s back to the way I like it.
Oh, Mathieu!!, thank you, thank you, thank you. All of the sudden my preferences were set in picas and I wasn’t able to change it back in inches! Of course, I always had a InDesign doc open! The little word “BEFORE” in your answer made all the difference! Thank you so much!!
Thank you! I couldn’t find a solution for this anywhere and I just kept getting picas no matter what I selected in preferences. This was a HUGE help.
Just to let y’all know, this is still relevant. I’m using InDesign CC and had a similar problem.
For me it was my picas switched to cm’s. (I’m a graphic designer, and we use picas and points, I feel they’re more precise.)
The suggestion of changing the preferences didn’t work for me but the other two worked perfectly.
Option 1 – (easiest for me to remember) Right click on vertical then horizontal ruler and choose the measurement system you want to use.
Option 2 – Use (Command-Option-Shift-U) for a Mac and (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U) for. The measurements cycle stop a the system you want to use.