UI Scaling in InDesign | Scale user interface based on screen resolution

[Ashutosh_Mishra]

One of your most requested features has now made its way into InDesign 2022 and InCopy 2022!

You can now configure UI scaling preferences in InDesign to uniformly scale the user interface based on your screen resolution.

Select Edit > Preferences > User Interface Scaling (on Windows) or InDesign/InCopy > Preferences > User Interface Scaling (on MAC) to access the UI Scaling options. A real-time preview option has also been included with the slider to help you make your decision regarding the size of the UI.

Additionally, you can also do the following:

• Scale the Cursor in proportion to the UI size.
• Change the display size of Anchor Points, Handles, and Bounding Box for InDesign (for InCopy, you can change the display size of Bounding Box only).

Let's hear about this feature from one of our InDesign Engineers.

Points to consider when using scalable UI: 

• UI Scaling is supported on your primary monitor only. 
• On some monitor resolutions, the UI Scaling option is grayed out/disabled. To enable it on Windows lower OS Scaling settings in the Display Settings on your monitor. To enable it on macOS, increase Scaled Resolution under System Preferences > Displays.
• The scaling options differ based on the resolution of the monitor. For example, on a 4K monitor you may have 5 stops, but on the Full HD monitor, you might just see 2 stops.
• As of now, only the workspace (which includes size of tools, text in panels, UI elements like buttons, icons) is scaled. The commands in the top menu or panel menu options are not scaled. We have planned to implement this in future releases.
• To troubleshoot issues when using this feature, please try following the suggestions in this community post.  

Please feel free to share any suggestions or improvements regarding the app on Adobe InDesign UserVoice.  

Regards, 

Ashutosh

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

I'm not giving you any condescension. However, having read your posts here and on the KDP forum, I'll just say being polite when asking for help in a user-to-user support group goes a long ways. You're not talking to Adobe, here; you're talking to other users who are volunteering their time to help each other. (The same is true of KDP, as well.)

YOU said you're working at HD/1080p. I can do nothing but take your word on that, so if you're "actually" working at 4K, well and good.

I understand your overall limitations — I have my own — but the Roku is still a fairly cheap TV that does not have the processing circuitry to make it work well as a computer monitor, so that's the base of all the problems here, most likely. I don't know of any simple solution for that. (I am, aside from some relevant ability here, an experienced AV/streaming advisor and quite familiar with multi-use systems. I have lost count of the times my simple recommendation to a company that couldn't get decent "computer" display on their conference room big screen boiled down to "Throw that piece of crap away.")

I also know that others who have complained of these faults with ID (and often ID alone, as you note) have resolved them. But again, past those few simple steps, there can be many details that are causing the inability to get a more optimized display. We (here, and you) could play try-this ping-pong for weeks and not hit on the solution, partly because it can be difficult to communicate exact instructions. (It is far, far from uncommon here for an issue to be grappled with for weeks before some significant factor comes to light, or it turns out the poster misunderstood some simple early instruction. So if you read any implication that you might not instantly grasp every suggestion here said and implement it perfectly... well, it's nothing personal and it's certainly not condescension.)

All I can say is that, "monitor" quality issues aside, I have never been unable to optimize an InDesign interface, even with technical hurdles of one sort or another. However, it can take hands-on access to see and find every nit that might be causing trouble. I am not sure anything but someone with significant system/Windows/ID experience, hands- and eyes-on your systerm, can resolve this.

[Kelli Jae Baeli]

If it's my TV BEING USED AS A MONITOR that is the problem, in your estimation, then why do all my other programs work just fine on the legibility issue? You continue to ignore this pertinent detail. I can see all the other menu text and panel text on every other program I use. It is only InDesign that has this problem.

Let me just say that when I come to any forum for help or insight, and am ignored, insulted, and the problem never gets addressed, I do tend to lose my patience. My demeanor is a product of that. I notice your continued sexism and condescension and ad hominem comments have been clear on other posts here and on KDP. Hypocrisy, much?

Since you seem incapable of addressing the actual issue I have posted about, but instead feel it necessary to be sexist, haughty, passive-aggressive, and elitist, please don't bother replying at all.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

If it's my TV BEING USED AS A MONITOR that is the problem, in your estimation, then why do all my other programs work just fine on the legibility issue?

Because InDesign is a different app from all the others, with an older engine and code. There is nothing surprising in that it might treat resolution and scaling management differently from even other Adobe apps. I don't think that was unclear in my above answers.

Your continuing fairly nasty (bordering on abusive) attitude — here and on KDP — makes me disinclined to engage your further. Best of luck on all your many publishing issues. I know, it's really tough when you're right and all the expertise out here is wrong.

[Kelli Jae Baeli]

The original point i made, YES. The problem needs to be addressed by updating the antiquated InDesign coding. Which they haven't done for MANY YEARS.

I will always defend myself against this sort of derisive treatment. And why is it that when a woman (or anyone else you deem a lesser) doesn't fall at your feet in admiration, or points out that you are not answering the question asked, you respond that she is nasty or abusive? Do you think a woman should not stand up for herself against you, oh Master of All Things? Please. Other people have experience and expertise that doesn't disappear when they ask a specific question about something. I've been doing this for 35 years, so climb down off your high horse, mister man. For future reference, you should not respond to questions you invent, so that you can place yourself above others. If you cannot answer the question asked, then please keep your opinions to yourself.

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

And, just one of those "simple" questions: do you have your computer set to use the TV at 4K resolution? Or despite being (capable of) 4K, are you set up to use it at HD resolution instead?