How can I change the color of my guides?

[Tom Goodell]

My guides in InDesign are all a light cyan, which I find hard to see. How can I change the color of the guides? I'd like to apply the color to the guides whether they are selected or not.

[jmlevy · Accepted solution]

Go to the Layout menu > Ruler guides.

New guides will have the color you will choose in the dropdown menu. Note that you must select existing guides to change their color. 

[Tom Goodell]

@jmlevy Thank you—just what I needed! I was looking in Preferences, it wouldn't have occurred to me to  look in the Layout menu.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

To add to @jmlevy 's answer, Cntl-Alt-G/Cmd-Opt-G will select all the unlocked guides on a per spread basis.

[Tom Goodell]

Thank you @Dave Creamer of IDEAS! I'm learning more than I ever expected about guides and it's all very helpful.

[Swandive stream]

Thank you. I was stuck on the same problem.

[rob day]

I'd like to apply the color to the guides whether they are selected or not

Hi @Tom Goodell , You can change all of the guides in a document via a script. This would change them all to Lipstick. To use a different UI color, replace LIPSTICK with the color name in all caps, e.g. BLUE, DARK_BLUE, GRID_GREEN:

app.activeDocument.guides.everyItem().guideColor = UIColors.LIPSTICK

[Tom Goodell]

@rob day Thank you—the script is super helpful, I'm pretty new to scripting so that will help get me started.

[Laubender]

Hi Tom,

look up every possible value for UIColor here:

https://www.indesignjs.de/extendscriptAPI/indesign-latest/#UIColors.html

Or use a custom RGB color for the guides.

Sample code for the reddest red you can get with RGB below ( values go from 0 to 255 )

app.activeDocument.guides.everyItem().guideColor = [ 255 , 0 , 0 ];

Regards,
Uwe Laubender
( Adobe Community Professional )

[Tom Goodell]

@Laubender Thank you! That's a great reference, good to know about.

[JoePeg]

A helpful hint: You can select all existing ruler guides on a spread by pressing Command+Option+G (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+G (PC).