Adobe InDesign CS5 - Manual (Page 55)

49 USING INDESIGN
Layout
Last updated 11/16/2011
Dragging a column guide to create unequal column widths
To create columns with unequal gutters, create evenly spaced ruler guides and then drag individual guides to the
desired location. (See “
Create ruler guides ” on page 56.)
Rulers and measurement units
For detailed information and instructions, click the links below.
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.
(See “
Change the zero point ” on page 51.)
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.
A
B
C