Expert: Roy Wilhelm - 3/8/2010

Question
Hi, I do a small town newspaper and am new to indesign. I am having great trouble with my page setup. My page size is 10.5 x 10.5. And even though it shows 10.5 on the ruler, for some reason to view the page at actual size it is at 545%. At 100% its very small. I'm sure it's probably an easy fix, but so far, I have been unable to find it. Thank you so much for any help.

Answer
Hi carrie,

My first guess is that your document is set up in picas instead of inches. InDesign is set up to display measurements in picas by default. You can change that setting in Preferences>Units & Measurements. I'm not sure how much you know about picas, but it's an old printer's measurement system. The system basically works like this:

12 points = 1 pica
6 picas = 1 inch = 72 points

If you typed "10.5" in the width and height boxes, you likely set the document to 10p6, which translates to "10 picas and six points" (1.75-inches).