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Question

Fonts sizes as pixels in InDesign CS6

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
March 20, 2013
3 replies
46178 views

How do you set text as pixels is CS6? I've created a new web doc - everything is in px except for fonts sizes. We need to set text in px so we can tell the programmers what size the fonts should be for programming. You could do this in InDesign CS5, why is it not longer available in CS6?

How to

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Mike Witherell

Community Expert

Wonderful discussion here. Just to add more detail than you wanted: a typical average LCD flat-panel screen is often physically about 90-108 ppi. Unless you have a Retina display, which is physically at 220 ppi (MacBookPro). Unless you have this display ... unless you have that display ... etc, etc: Different manufacturers' monitor panels have a lot of difference in pixels per inch physical display.

From my reading, it seems that the venerable 72 ppi number originates with the mid-1980s Macintosh Classic 9" display being 72 ppi physically. But physical pixel size rapidly moved up to 96 ppi before 1989, as I remember it.

So the comment that 72 PostScript points = 72 pixels, along with the old tradition of making all web graphics set to 72 ppi was/is scarcely ever physically true. It borders on urban legend, and continues to confuse all of us.

I am a bit surprised that monitors have been kind of stagnant for ppi for a while, unless you buy super high-priced ones.

Mike Witherell

rob day

Community Expert

But physical pixel size rapidly moved up to 96 ppi before 1989, as I remember it.

An InDesign page doesn't have an output resolution, but for screen design you might want to design a page to a specified pixel dimension. In that case the pixel unit has to be assigned a single dimension so that you can export to the desired pixel dimensions. Adobe could have chosen another arbitrary size for a pixel, but it wouldn't matter—if they had chosen 1/96" then we would have to export our 1024x768 page at 96ppi to keep those same dimensions in Photoshop.

Displaying a page at a 1:1 ratio (which is needed for screen design) is a real problem in the current version. In CC you could double click the Zoom tool and get 1:1, in CC2014 you have to use a script.

B

b3rimbau

Participant

rob day wrote:

Adobe could have chosen another arbitrary size for a pixel, but it wouldn't matter—if they had chosen 1/96" then we would have to export our 1024x768 page at 96ppi to keep those same dimensions in Photoshop.

Had this been the case, then it would correspond with the W3C definition of a CSS pixel (CSS Values and Units Module Level 3) and my InDesigners' visuals would have been the same size as my initial web prototypes :-)

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

72 points = 1 inch

1 point = 1/72 inch

You're working at 72ppi so one point will equal exactly one pixel.

Cazzy21 wrote:
It is my understanding that points DO NOT = pixels
12pt = 16px
see this site for conversion table http://reeddesign.co.uk/test/points-pixels.html

A pixel is 1/96 inch

96/72 = 1.3^

and 12pt x 1.3 = 15.6px (or rounded up as a pixel is on or off so 16 px)

Jongware

Community Expert

Eugene Tyson wrote:

A pixel is 1/96 inch

No it is not, it depends on your monitor size and resolution. Which is why Adobe's lame solution for InDesign 'one pixel equals one point' was an *extremely* Bad Decision.

The difference with Photoshop is that in PS, you have total control over the pixel-to-Physical World Measurement ratio with the Image Size dialog.

E

Eugene Tyson

Community Expert

My bad - I meant in general - should have specified that.

Of course you are right. I was just providing some loose math around why they are seeing strange conversion from 12pt to 16px.

Peter Spier

Community Expert

Use P;oints, in whole integer values. There's a 1:1 correspondence between pixel and point dimensions.

C

Cazzy21Author

Participant

It is my understanding that points DO NOT = pixels

12pt = 16px

see this site for conversion table http://reeddesign.co.uk/test/points-pixels.html

R

RichardSwearinger

Known Participant

Photoshop is a pixel editor, and InDesign is a layout application, and they have essentially nothing in common. I have no idea at all what Photoshop is measuring when you spec type in pixels, but the size and measurement value remain constant relative to the size of the image when you change the resolution values. If you spec the type in points and change the resolution, the type will remain the same size relative to the image, but the measurement value will change in reverse proportion to the resolution change.

This isn't directly related to type, but it might help you undeerstand the relationship between Photoshop and ID. Although you can list a resolution, it has no meaning inside photoshop itself and only becomes relevant when you place the object on a page (as in ID). ID reads the pixel dimensions, divides by the resolution and determines how large that is at 100% scale in units of measure, like inches or points. Becasue there are 72 points in a postscript inch it was convenient to map pixels to points as a ruler unit when web layout functionality was "added" to ID, but it really isn't working in pixels, it's just a relabeling of the rulers. When you place an image, in a pixel-measured document, if you want it to come in at 100% and have the size on the rulers match the pixel dimensions you have to save in Photoshop at 72 ppi.

So can you use your influence with Adobe to get them to fix this hiccup? I lay out books in ID, but they also go onto the web and for certain uses I need to specify type size in pixels to make sure my math works out right.

And another thing, for certain e-pubs, Kindle is telling me I need to save pages as GIFs. Could you please ask them to restore exporting ID pages in that venerable format?

Thanks

RS

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