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change the default units permanently

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I know how to change the units of measurement. Edit, Preferences and then I can change picas to inches or whatever. In the old CC 6, this would become the default. Now, in the online InDesign, every single new document I have to change the preferences from picas to inches. Is there a way to permanently change this? It's annoying as heck!

How to

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danielbeltranCorrect answer

Participant

Thank you! The trick was not having any document open when changing the preferences.

acameron1

Participating Frequently

Here's a short 1-minute video on how to update, if you prefer video:

https://youtu.be/ud2ltCCVK1c?feature=shared

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danielbeltranCorrect answer

Participant

Thank you! The trick was not having any document open when changing the preferences.

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johnm82806023

Inspiring

I agree, VERY annoying! It wasn't this way for me until version 19.0.1

I go back to when it was called Pagemaker.

Only designers from the 1980's use picas 😉

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rob day

Community Expert

I agree, VERY annoying! It wasn't this way for me until version 19.0.1

Ruler Units have always been settable as an Application Preference (set your preferred unit with no documents open), or a Document Preference (set your preferered unit for an active document and save). As Scott mentioned above, most inDesign Preferences can be either application or document specific.

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Frans v.d. Geest

Community Expert

@johnm82806023 Always been this way. Just change it with no document open, it becomes the default for new documents; in older documents change it once, save the document, done.

This is unchanged since the first ever version of InDesign.

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GymDean

Participant

Thank you this has been driving me nuts!

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Angela5E5F

Participant

Heck YES! THANK YOU!!!

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Anonymous

Thank you soo much! This has been driving me nuts for years now. 😬🙃

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geris67254912Author

Participant

OMG. That was ridiculously easy. Thank you--it was driving me nuts having to change the units every single time.

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Scott Falkner

Community Expert

This is how a lot of defaults work in InDesign. Change something when an object is selected and you change the attribute on that object. Change something when no object is selected and you make that the defult for all new objects in that InDesign document. Change something when no document is open and you make that the default for new objects in all new documnets created on that computer.

Whenever I install a new copy of InDesign or set up a new computer I set the defaults to what I want. eg. type size and leading incrments to 1 point instead of 2 and tracking/kerning to 5 units instead of 20 (which honestly should be the defaults out of the can).

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