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How can I set the font size from pt to millimeters?

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
January 10, 2017
4 replies
68680 views

I did it in the previous versions of InDesign, and I need to do it since I'm designing for print.

Thank you!

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Correct answer jmlevy

You are right, my memories are not that accurate! I used the font size in millimeters too, but in Illustrator. I worked on technical materials, too, and everything had to be set in millimeters (I work in Italy).
The problem is that points and picas are not used by many professionals here, since we use the metric system.
Clients and suppliers want to know dimensions in millimeters and, as you can imagine, it isn't convenient to give them fractions.

That said, is there a workaround that I can use to avoid this issue?

Thank you

I worked on technical materials, too, and everything had to be set in millimeters (I work in Italy).

I'm afraid there's nothing to do, since Adobe is not interested to understand that inches, picas and points (based on fraction of inches) are not the global standard.

Even if you work in Europe (as I do since I am French), using millimeters to set up document sizes, and text and images frames dimensions, type setting is always done using points. I am pretty sure that there is no graphic designer that is able to work with type using millimeters.

L

laurentc39824241

Participating Frequently

Hi, still no news on this issue ?

Setting up a baseline grid in points when all your page measurements are in mm is extremely annoying. If you want other dimensions to be consistent with your baseline, you end up either with a grid set in points and weird decimals everywhere else, or with a grid set in millimeters (automatically converted in points) which leads to approximations at the bottom of the page and difficulties with the font sizes.

And yes, ok, you can't measure accurately a font size, but what does it have to do with the unit you use ? A type set in 24pt will be printed with exactly the same size than the same type set in 8,467mm. A type set in 8mm will be printed with exactly the same size than the same type set in 22,677pt. So why can't we choose which units are more convenient for us ?

James Gifford—NitroPress

Legend

I don't see where anyone's mentioned that ID accepts mm as a unit entry, even if it converts it to the current default. E.g., I can type "6mm" into the baseline "Increment every" field and it converts it to 17.008pt. Not perfect, but doc setup should be a one-time step for most work and the weird fractions can be ignored in the type and leading panes.

(Does all this mean that French designers don't use diderot and cicerot any more? 🙂

—

jmlevy

Community Expert

I was doing that when I started, but I finally switched for setting the grid in mm because it allows making a nice overall square grid.

@rob day About grid and units: I have given XPress and InDesign classes for more than 15 years and I never met any designer in France setting up grids using millimeters.
By @jmlevy

Maybe a mix of "it has always be done like this", "I've been told to do like this" and the softwares preventing us to use mm.

Maybe a mix of "it has always be done like this", "I've been told to do like this"

I spent my professional life to struggle against this kind of behaviour… So, no.

M

mhusein

Participant

There still isn't any way to change this in InDesign but this issue had been vexing me as well.

Maybe this article might be helpful in the debate?

Metric typographic units

rob day

Community Expert

There still isn't any way to change this in InDesign but this issue had been vexing me as well.
Maybe this article might be helpful in the debate?
Metric typographic units

The article is 20 years old, InDesign didn’t even exist when it was written.

macpawel

Participating Frequently

You can manualy enter font size using mm

Just type eg. 23 mm and confirm it with Enter

InDesign translate this to points but it works

Pawel

S

SiviUserAuthor

Participating Frequently

I already do it, but then I have to re-convert points to mm if I want to know what size I have set for the font.
I'm afraid there's nothing to do, since Adobe is not interested to understand that inches, picas and points (based on fraction of inches) are not the global standard.

Lucky me Illustrator and Photoshop are designed differently.
Thank you for your time.

Silvia

Jongware

Community Expert

I'd like to remind everyone that even if you enter a "font size" in mm, it will not come out at that actual size. It is not the height of the capitals, nor that of lowercase ascender + descender. It's at the discretion of the designer how large the font characters are drawn inside the em-block. (Technically, all font sizes ought to be in fractions of ems, since that is the design base!)

But I guess ultimately it comes down to "whatever you are used to".

It's indeed strange that InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop have these small differences which might be expected to be consistent across a "Suite" of software, and which, rather trivially, could be made so.

John Mensinger

Community Expert

siviuser wrote:
I did it in the previous versions of InDesign

How?

...and I need to do it since I'm designing for print.

Well, you may indeed have reason to specify a height in mm for your type, but generally speaking, designing for print doesn't require it.

InDesign has only ever "spoken" type sizes in points. (Illustrator allows you to set mm as the type-size unit.) You can enter mm in the size field, and InDesign will convert to points based on mathematical mm - pt factoring, but that won't guarantee the cap-height of your type will match the mm measurement you entered, because cap-height is font specific. In other words, unit conversion notwithstanding, the cap height of one font at 12 pt (approx 4.25 mm, converted) won't be the same as another font.

I design technical materials where sometimes standards dictate type of a minimum cap-height. In those cases, I use type of the applicable font converted to outlines to benchmark the minimum cap-height, then height-match live type to establish the minimum point size.

Steve Werner

Community Expert

Good answer, John,

I imagine the poster is remembering making the setting to millimeters in Illustrator. It's never been possible in InDesign.

S

SiviUserAuthor

Participating Frequently

You are right, my memories are not that accurate! I used the font size in millimeters too, but in Illustrator. I worked on technical materials, too, and everything had to be set in millimeters (I work in Italy).
The problem is that points and picas are not used by many professionals here, since we use the metric system.
Clients and suppliers want to know dimensions in millimeters and, as you can imagine, it isn't convenient to give them fractions.

That said, is there a workaround that I can use to avoid this issue?

Thank you

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