Setting up Your Document > Using the rulers

 

Using the rulers

Rulers help you accurately place and measure objects in your document. They appear at the left and top of the Document window.

The rulers adjust as you scroll and zoom in the file. The large tick marks indicate the unit of measure (such as points), and the small tick marks indicate the increment (such as 16 points). By default, the zero point is set at the upper left corner of the Document window; you can adjust this position.

Page rulers use the document's current unit of measure, set in the Units pop-up menu in the lower left of the Document window. You can define custom units of measure equivalent to meters, feet, yards, miles, nautical miles, kilometers, ciceros, and didots. You define custom units on a per-document basis.

Note: To make custom units available to newly created FreeHand documents, you can add the custom units to a FreeHand template. For more information, see Creating a new default template.

To show or hide page rulers:

Choose View > Page Rulers > Show.

This command toggles between showing and hiding the rulers. A check mark indicates that the rulers are visible.

To change the page ruler's zero point:

Drag the zero-point marker from the upper left corner of the Document window to a new location on the pasteboard.

To reset the page rulers:

Double-click the zero-point marker.

To define a custom unit of measure:

1

Choose View > Page Rulers > Edit.

2

In the Edit Units dialog box, create a new custom unit by typing a new name or accepting the default name.

3

Enter numeric values in the text boxes and use the pop-up menus to choose the units upon which to base the custom unit of measure.

4

Do one of the following:

To add another custom unit, click the Plus (+) button.

To remove a custom unit, click the Minus (-) button. When the warning dialog box appears, click OK to remove the unit.

5

Click Accept, then click Close.

To delete a custom unit of measure:

1

Choose View > Page Rulers > Edit to open the Edit Units dialog box.

2

Select the unit of measure you want to delete from the Units pop-up menu.

3

Click the Minus (-) button.

4

In the alert dialog box, click OK. Then click Close.