July 12 2007 • 3:53 PM
By:
David Blatner
InDesign Measurements Changing Unexpectedly
James wrote:
Can you tell me why InDesign sometimes decides to change all the measurements (for space before/after/etc) from ‘mm’ to ‘pt’!? I have to keep opening the preferences and manually change them back again!
This one really stumped me until Anne-Marie reminded me that there’s a keyboard shortcut for changing the units of measurements: Command-Option-Shift-U (or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+U on Windows). Each time you press this, you cycle through the measurement systems: points, picas, inches, inches decimal, millimeters, centimeters, ciceros, agates (in CS3), and Custom.
We checked it out with James, and he replied: “That’s it!” Apparently he was trying to underline text with a KBSC from time to time and was adding the Option/Alt key accidentally. Well, we all learned/remembered something today. 
Another reason it may change is because of a script. If you run the script “corner effects” (to change just one corner) it will change all of your units to points unless you type in a different measurement.
Don’t forget you can right-click on the rulers too to change the units of measurements.
Don’t forget, also, that you can simply type in “in”, “pt”, etc after your value to enter measurements in the system you prefer – regardless of what is set in Preferences.
Thanks for the ‘other’ solution, Fritz. I also have my units change on me occasionally, but the first answer here didn’t explain the issue for me. Your ’script’ suggestion solves my problem.
You can also set the default preferences for the program by altering any preferences BEFORE any documents are open. This way everytime you start a new document the units will already be set to your favorite!
I can see this is an old thread, but I’m still having problems with this and although the shortcut is useful I can’t understand why occasionally when creating a new document the units revert back to picas. I haven’t used the script mentioned and I have set the default units without any documents open several times. This works for a while and every now and again the picas crop up – very annoying. I’m using CS2 so I wonder if this is a bug. Does anyone have any further thoughts?
Thx in advance
Jim
I am having the same issue as Jim– I set the pref with no doc open and yet it seems to want to revert to picas. Similarly, I made a default startup doc and it keeps reverting to its default. Not a big deal, granted, but a slight annoyance and seems like it ought to be soluble. There ARE bugs in my indd app, so I’m gonna write this off as one till I hear otherwise. –Ty
Thank god I found this thread. The picas were driving me nuts when trying to open a new docu. in Cs5
Does anyone know how to change the units of measurement in the print dialog box? Mine are stuck on points and I would really like them to be inches. I’ve tried changing some preference settings, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
In CS5, quit InDesign. You can save your documents.
Now open CS5 and BEFORE you open any document go to the InDesign menu>Preferences>Units & Increments and change the Ruler Units settings in Horizontal and Vertical to whatever measurement you like.
Now when you open new documents it should be in that measurement.
Mine has changed back to picas twice in about a year and I don’t know why but when it’s happened I just do this and it’s back to the way I like it.