Indesign scale incorrect.

[TyBB]

When I preview my indesign document (A5 page size) at 100% the document is showing on screen at a size larger than a4. This is a problem as I need to know what the document will look like at actual size. The scaling was fine before the last update. I have the latest adobe CC updates and am running this on a windows 11 PC (also fully up to date) Any ideas?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

Here's a great tutorial:

https://creativepro.com/how-to-install-scripts-in-indesign/

I am in that small segment of very advanced/experienced users who just never much turn to scripts, so I had to look it up, too.

If you're into them, it's easiest to put a folder link somewhere so you can dive right in and copy scripts there. That's all it takes; once in that folder, they are ready for you to call up.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Starting with CC2022, ID included the User Interface Scaling in Preferences. I remember when I installed that version, my UI items were larger on my Retina display than they were on CC2021. I checked the UI Scaling setting and it was set at the second step up:

This cause EVERYTHING to be larger, including the rulers, so viewing at 100% was incorrect.

If I instead set it to Small, which now matched my CC2021 experience, everything was back to being correct.

Of course, I'm on a Mac, but it's worth looking at this on your machine as well.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I think this is the key to the problems: if you scale the UI to something suitable for yourself (especially on large, extremely high-res monitors), the actual document display may not be anywhere near suitable. Adding one more function — zoom scaling — might even free up some aspects of UI scaling that were limited because of effects on doc scaling.

I do very much admire Adobe's modern interface, with scaling, overall color/brightness and endless customizability. Just one more toy, though, Santa... 🙂

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

Are you on a high-res monitor?

(you can tell because ID will grey-out the UI Scaling preference on normal "low-res' monitors)

So I did some tests on a Windows 10 machine. If the Display preferences for the machine have been changed, e.g. if you've set the scaling preference to something other than the (Recommended) 100%, like so:

... this affects how InDesign displays the rulers, as you are essentially just "zooming" Windows.

So, besides checking your UI Scaling orefence, you ALSO have to make sure the system preferences for Display are set properly.

[rob day]

Hi Brad, I think that’s why I don’t see the problem on OSX running CC2021. The Apple Display Preference allows me to change the interface size, but InDesign gets the new monitor resolution from the OS, and adjusts the 100% view:

If you leave the InDesign User Interface Scaling Preference at the smallest size (no change), but set the Windows scaling to 125%, do you get the enlarged 100% view in InDesign?

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

"If you leave the InDesign User Interface Scaling Preference at the smallest size (no change), but set the Windows scaling to 125%, do you get the enlarged 100% view in InDesign"

Yup. At least on my Win 10 monitor setup, which in my case is a normal 1600x1050 Acer, Beacuse it's a normal pitch monitor, UI Scaling is greyed out in Indesign, so it doesn't come into play, so it's solely the Windows sisplay scaling setting affecting the ruler accuracy.

[Brad @ Roaring Mouse]

I think what ultimately needs to happen is for Adobe's ID development team to look at adding sub-setting to the UI Scaling Preferences to have rulers ignore the revised interface setting for accurate on-screen size representation, as it's really usually just the interface elements one wants larger on high-pitch monitors. (I will check the bugs and features page to see if this has been brought up before). This would fix the issue in ID, but would still be affected by Windows Display scaling. As rob has mentioned, Dispaly Scaling in Mac works differently and ID gets proper information to alow proper rulers (as long as they as the UI Scaling setting is still "Small")

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

That's more or less what I suggested above, but it has to be more than just reading/ignoring system values. They aren't going to be accurate in some number of cases, so making it a completely independent zoom scale adjustment would solve all these issues, and leave them/us free to scale the OS display, app UI and other details as we like without messing up the one simple aspect of doc display size.