Metric Default

I already knew how to change documents to mm, what I think is needed is one that changes it all when I install. ie, controlled through Creative Cloud.

I'd love to see the stats on US versus the rest of the world, but also how many people actually use US Letter? 

What I wanting is for Adobe to understand there is a world outside the USA and to stop acting like Donald Trump.  

FYI - even when I change my default, the first option I am presented is US Letter, and in 20 years of using this software I have never use US Letter for anything. 

"Most of the world uses the metric system."

True, and that includes a good part of US industry, although we do stick to our odd paper sizes. 

I'd just mildly argue that most publication pros use picas and points, as the sensible choice for that application. 🙂

When InDesign is installed in Languages with metric as standard (like French or German) the metric is standard. You can go to the preferences when no document is open. But font size should always be in the inch system, as 12pt=1p, 6p=1inch.

But even if you do not have set to metric, you can insert in any field any system number with the unit. The abreviation of the units is different in each language version, like inch="=z=i depending on the language.

As others intimate, it's kind of a two step manual process:

Step 1: Open the Adobe applications you use. Do not open any document files in those applications. Go to the Preferences menu command — found in the Application (InDesign) pull-down menu on Macs, at the bottom of the Edit pull-down menu on Windows systems. Navigate your way to the Units and Increments Preferences section and choose either Millimeters or Centimeters options, as you prefer. Then click the OK button.

This will tell your Adobe apps to define all new documents you create in metric terms. But as reported here, will have no impact on existing documents that use other units of measurement. Because measurement settings are document-centric. Changing the default measurements only tells your Adobe applications to apply those document-centric settings to any new documents. Which brings us to ...

Step 2: When you open an existing document which uses measures that offend you, change measurement settings for the document using the steps above to change to metric measurements. Realize that when you're changing settings in existing documents, others who created them may take the same offense you have to what tick marks are on the document rulers.

Jus' sayin'

Randy

Hi @Andrew31671736gg8u , The InDesign defaults are user defined.

To set the default Ruler Units for new documents to metric, close all documents and set your Units & Increments Ruler Units to Centimeters or Millimeters. To change the default Document Preset to A4 choose File>New>Document..., set the Page Size to A4, click the Save Document Preset icon and Save Preset As Default and click Ok, and then Yes when asked to replace:

Keep in mind that most InDesign Preferences can be either Appliction or Document specific. If you set a preference with no documents open the preference is used for all future documents. If you set a preference with a document open, the preference is used for that document only.

You can change the settings from inch to millimeter once for the future and after you used a DIN-format as document format InDesign will rember. What bothers you the most, maybe we can find a solution?