Comments on: Scaling vs. Resizing in InDesign CS3

By: Jez Russell

Jez Russell — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 19:28:23 +0000

Thanks for the tip. It helped a bunch!

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:31:09 +0000

@Tim and Cliff: I don’t know what the problem is, but it sounds more like you have the Selection tool (black arrow) selected, not the Scale or Free Transform tool.

By: cliff

cliff — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 14:29:20 +0000

My content still will not change. It makes the frame box bigger but the content still stays the same. I placed a 2″ square picture into a document and it shows up as .0417″. When I resize, it only makes a bigger frame box. I want to throw my computer off my desk right about now! Someone help??

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 27 May 2010 23:07:18 +0000

When using the scaling tool in CS4 to resize a frame and its contents, in one direction only, all the text in the frame is not resizing. It actually just reflows to fit the smaller space. I do have ‘apply to contents when scaling’ selected in the preferences. Does anyone have any suggestions or ideas?

By: InDesignSecrets » Blog Archive » Your Forgotten Friend – The Info Panel

Sat, 06 Feb 2010 21:45:02 +0000

[...] Scale – The scale information will not be displayed if you scale with the control panel, however if you scale with the scale tool it will display the exact same information as the control. Once again, the free transform tool has a unique way of displaying information. After you scale an object and release the mouse it will display the amount that you have scaled whereas the control panel immediately resets back to 100%. The info panel will clear back to 100% as soon as you switch to another tool, but this can let you see your actually scale amount without having to nervously hold down the mouse button. For more info on scaling please read Davids extensive article on the subject of scaling. [...]

By: Valeriya Tuz

Valeriya Tuz — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:54:21 +0000

ProScale from GLUON does it all
http://store.gluon.com/Products/ProScaleIDCS3.dmg

By: Tim Young

Tim Young — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 00:52:40 +0000

Ah, I see! Got it. Thanks.

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:57:13 +0000

@Tim: I can see how that could be be confusing. However, the “Scale X Percentage” is not the field labeled “X”. It’s the one that is usually third over on the top of the Control panel. If you hover your mouse over it, you should see a tool tip pop up that says “Scale X Percentage.”

By: Tim Young

Tim Young — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 08:13:24 +0000

Reading the discussion of scaling above, I’m puzzled by this:

“When the frame is selected (and not the frame’s contents) with the Selection tool, changing the values of the Scale X Percentage and Scale Y Percentage fields always changes the frame and its content.”

I can’t get this to work in the way I’m understanding it to work. Changing X and Y just makes the object and frame change position, rather than scaling.

I’m using the Selection tool and clicking on the framed object. Does this equal “selecting the frame and not the frame’s contents”?

I’m also puzzled by “percentage” because the X and Y fields show a unit of measure, not a percentage.

What am I doing wrong?

By: David Blatner

David Blatner — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:52:29 +0000

@Gabriela: Are you saying you want to be able to specify that a capital letter be exactly 1 inch tall, or something like that? Unfortunately, InDesign does not let you do that. If you specify 72 pt (which normally = 1 inch) text, the cap could be larger or (probably) smaller than that. It all depends on the font itself.