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Defining ruler units


    The large tick marks on the rulers indicate the unit of measure (such as inches), and the small tick marks indicate increments of the unit of measure (such as 1/8 inch). When you magnify or reduce your view, the increments of the unit of measure reflect the change in magnification.

    The default units of measure for the rulers are points (a point equals .3528 millimeter). You can change the unit of measure to inches, millimeters, centimeters, picas (a pica equals 12 points or 4.2333 millimeters), or pixels by using the Units & Undo panel of the Preferences dialog box or the Artboard panel of the Document Setup dialog box.

    The unit of measure that you set for the rulers applies when you measure objects, move and transform objects, set grid and guides spacing, and create ellipses and rectangles. It does not affect the units in the Character and Paragraph palettes, which always display size, leading, vertical shift, line width, and line dash in the units set in the Type pop-up menu in the Units & Undo Preferences dialog box. (See Setting type attributes.)

To set the ruler unit of measure for all files:

  1. Choose Edit > Preferences > Units & Undo (Windows and Mac OS 9) or Illustrator > Preferences > Units & Undo (Mac OS X).
  2. From the General pop-up menu, choose the unit of measure you want to use, and click OK.

To set the ruler unit of measure for only the current file:

  1. Choose File > Document Setup. Choose Artboard from the pop-up menu at the top left of the Document Setup dialog box.
  2. From the Units pop-up menu, choose the unit of measure you want to use, and click OK.
  3. TipYou can quickly change the units of measure by right-clicking (Windows) or Control-clicking (Mac OS) the ruler and choosing a new unit of measure from the menu that appears.