What does the letter P stand for?

[Mike Witherell]

Hey gang,

In the rotation icon in the Control Panel of InDesign, what does the letter "P" stand for?

Mike wants to know!

[BobLevine]

Page

[winterm]

Position.

Edit: it shows if the object is rotated / flipped. Page is not touched here.

[BobLevine]

That might be even better. Honestly, never gave it much thought.

[winterm]

So did I

[BobLevine]

Right. I thought it was the way the PAGE was positioned but I guess it was the way the page object was POSITIONED.

[JonathanArias]

i thought it was position too

[Mike Witherell]

Come on, guys, dig deep! What does it stand for?

[Derek Cross]

Are you talking about the Pilcrow?

[BobLevine]

Nope:

[Bevi Chagnon - PubCom.com]

I don't think the P itself "means" anything. Just an icon to indicate the degree of rotation of the object or when it's flipped. The hover pop-up tooltip says "flipped" or "not flipped" which isn't completely accurate.

If it had a graphic there instead of a P, we really couldn't easily tell when the graphic is rotated 90 degrees or flipped. But with a letter P, we can quickly see when it's lying on its side or backwards.

Mike, why do you ask?

[BobLevine]

Yeah, Mike!

What’s the story here?

[Laubender]

Hi Bevi,

my German InDesign is also showing a "P".

So I think "Position" is meant. Same word in German.

"Pivot" would have been perhaps translated as "Drehpunkt" ( "D" ) or "Achse" ( "A").

Regards,
Uwe

[Jongware]

Both "A" and "D" would pose a practical problem wrt mirroring and flipping.

I've always understood it as Portrait: "This is the 'normal' position".

[Mike Witherell]

The Help file says:

The flip/rotate indicator (P) in the middle of the Control panel appears white with a black outline if an object is flipped. If the object is not flipped, the indicator is solid black.

and the link is here:

Transform objects in InDesign

[winterm]

IMO, such *icons* very often have historical roots. Yes, I think, its rather an icon nowadays than an actual abbreviation of any meaningful word (@Uwe: this also explains why it is not translated).

As far as I remember P was always used in Print Setup dialogs, and, most likely, its meaning was Portrait, like [Jongware] pointed out. Yeah, that’s a classic meaning.

Now, in ID’s Control panel, function is different (but it is still about orientation), and one may apply to it another, *better* word, which still starts with P 

[Bill Silbert]

Bottom line here is that the "P" stands for Puzzle.

[Mike Witherell]

Hi Bevi and all,

Usually, there is an official name for everything in InDesign. When I'm teaching, I like to know the exact name of even obscure bits of the interface. (I'm teaching an InDesign class right now in Washington DC). It is a fun question, no?

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Mike, do you have an answer, or looking for theories and opinions?

[Jeffrey_Smith]

Pivot

[Derek Cross]

Surely it stands for Paper

[beto correa]

or P​osition...

[innovative_adventurer5D56]

it shows the direction of flipped object, see my sample. flipped.

and this one: not flipped.

[Mike Witherell]

I had no idea how obscured this is turning out to be!!!  

[Danny Whitehead.]

My guess is nothing. It will have been inherited from the classic page setup icon, where maybe the fact that it's the first letter of 'page' was relevant, but I think the main reason the capital P was chosen is because when it's flipped and rotated in different ways, they look particularly distinct from one another.