Objects not aligning across Illustrator and InDesign

[cirjakvoja]

I have a basic design on a spread in InDesign (18.1), and I wanted to take it to Illustrator (27.5) to properly complete it. I created a document in Illustrator with the matching dimensions to the one in InDesign. I then tried to manually recreate the object (using the rectangle tool, I matched the height/width), I then matched the angle of the object (the height/width values automatically change), and also matched the X, Y coordinates. However, the object was not in the same place as it is in InDesign. I tried using ChatGPT to help me out, but all I got out of it is to set the ruler to global rulers, click Shift+O and set the artboard coordinates to 0, and then double click the small square in the top-left corner. However, if I double-click on the square, the coordinates of the artboard are no longer zero, and if I set them to zero, the ruler values of the artboard aren't at zero.

I do not undersand what is happening and how to overcome it. I tried substracting the X, Y coordinate values of the Illustrator artboard from the X, Y coordinates of the InDesign object, but I still couldn't get it to be in place.

[Monika Gause · Accepted solution]

Chat GPT doesn't know a lot about Illustrator. When you set up the x and y position, did you also set the correct registration point? Matching what you set up in InDesign?

[cirjakvoja]

I did no corrections or anything like that. I just clicked create object from the rectangle tool and 1/1 copied the values from InDesign.

I do not know what the registration point is. May I kindly ask you to guide me how to match this between InDesign and Illustrator?

[cirjakvoja]

I believe I figured it out. You were referring to the reference point, which is the indicates point on the square in the Transform panel. For some reason, the reference point in InDesign was set to a bottom square point. Very odd, but thanks to you, I can now work on the design as intended!!