Picas or Inches (cm)

So I just installed the In Design demo. Five minutes later I am ready to buy, now back to looking at those bundles :)

anyways... everything, document setup defaults to picas.
I am used to working with inches just because that's how I talk to printers...
"It's a 9 x 16 folded to 9 x 4..."

anyways... so I am like, ok, Picas, hmmm.... alright I'll go with that
so I start working in points and picas. I have to say it's really an improvement, no more fractions and decimals... I am going to start all my print work like this now...

so what do you use?

waits for this into a metric vs. standard debate.

I initially set the document in inches so I know how it's going to come out on a printer / plotter, then go to pixels. If it's something like blueprints, I just keep it in the ol' standard system.

Plus, working in pixels are no problem because I have most of the basic conversions memorized so it just takes a little multiplication to figure something up.

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Originally Posted by Genesis F5

Plus, working in pixels are no problem because I have most of the basic conversions memorized so it just takes a little multiplication to figure something up.

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Wouldn't your multiplication will be simpler if you used Picas though?
Instead of multiplying everything x 72, just use 6.

slightly off topic (sorry)....

if i am used to using Quark (have the beta version at home at the moment), do you think it will be fairly easy to move to In Design (getting it at work)?

Funny thing is that I think in Standard ( We call it "imperial" here in Oz) but I work in Metric....all my docs are in Cms and Fonts in Pixels....Picas? I didn't think it was used at all on the web..:D

iTony

Yeah, I might give it a try. I've seen it listed, but never tried it. I just hope it isn't anything like TWIP (Used by default in Visual Basic.). Man, I hate that measurement system.

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Originally Posted by XU1

Picas? I didn't think it was used at all on the web..:D

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well, that's the other thing...
this is for print, so it makes more sense to use at larger PPI / DPI.
but converting to pixels is simple then too, just multiply x 12.

Picas? Isn't that what you get on your tacos?

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Originally Posted by carly1979

slightly off topic (sorry)....

if i am used to using Quark (have the beta version at home at the moment), do you think it will be fairly easy to move to In Design (getting it at work)?

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Quark is huge here in Australia nearly most printers use it for their layouts....I love Adobe products...Except for GoLive....the transition from one to another is usualy not too painful...but from Quark to In Design is like Corel to Photoshop...for me way.

iTony

Working with the location, relative positions of different page elements I typically stick with inches. Working with fonts (size, spacing, etc) always points/picas.

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Originally Posted by indivision

Picas? Isn't that what you get on your tacos?

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LOL...... It reminds me of the "Free Chile" banners of the 70s....I saw one that said over it "Free Chile"..."with every taco"

Admedia...Printing was what I think of when Picas is mentioned.

But I need a calculator for converting anything bigger than screensize.

iTony

Picas? WTF? :D

mm's or Inches here... mainly mm's though

Yeah, mm here too - works for everything, everywhere, anytime.

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Originally Posted by asheep_uk

Yeah, mm here too - works for everything, everywhere, anytime.

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How about converting to the web though?
I can tell you offhand that 30 picas is 360 pixels.
Now how many pixels is 300 mm?

It's so much better. See alot of my print stuff was based on 1/4 inch or 1/8 inch.. well a Pica is 1/6 inch, close enough, so everything is now 1 or 0p6

Bah, you people are all trendwhores that just jump on anything new that comes along.
I prefer to stick to reliable old standards that never change.
Besides, if cubits were good enough for Noah's Ark then they're good enough for me.
Cubit calculator

.

The measurement's name just bothers me. It sounds like a Pokemon character.

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Originally Posted by Loyal Rogue

Bah, you people are all trendwhores that just jump on anything new that comes along.
I prefer to stick to reliable old standards that never change.
Besides, if cubits were good enough for Noah's Ark then they're good enough for me.
Cubit calculator

.

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Hey, call me quick... I am just finally adopting a standard that's been around for well over a hundred years. :)
http://cgm.cs.mcgill.ca/~luc/fabian-point.html

That cubit calculator sucks, doesn't work for me in FireFox and how many pixels is a cubit anyways? ;)

WTF is a pica? A pixel? N00b!

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Originally Posted by Markp.com

WTF is a pica? A pixel? N00b!

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A Pica = 12 pixels.
http://www.answers.com/topic/pica-un...asure?method=6

Yeah, but I've only used it for screen based fonts before... whats the point in using them in other aspects of design where pixels, inches/cm/mm have all aspects covered?

Man ... I fell old.

Picas, points ... all standard print measurments over a century old. Typically used in typesetting.

1pt = 1px (not originally, but that's the way it pans out in digital measurments). 12pts = 1pica. 6pica or 72points = 1 inch.

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Originally Posted by Markp.com

whats the point in using them in other aspects of design where pixels, inches/cm/mm have all aspects covered?

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Because there is no correlation between mm/cm/inches and pixels / points.
there is with Picas.

Also I am used to working with inches so usually everything like bleeds and spacing, margins, etc... is in 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 of inches.... or decimals... .25, .125, .0625.. I hate those...

so I figure a Pica (or 1/6 of an inch) is a nice dimension. I will just use that instead of fractions of inches for layouts now.
Now my world seems simpler.
2, 1, 0p6. That's making more sense to me. :)

Heh. Just realised: 12 points is equal to 1 pica, right? It's probably derived from the measurement Pico, which is 10^-12 (one trillionth).

I design in mm for print, but then again if I'm printing huge artworks, like big advertisements, I usually go for cm's. On one occasion the canvas was so huge, I had to make it in 20*5meters.

Fonts in points though. Always.

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Originally Posted by admedia

Because there is no correlation between mm/cm/inches and pixels / points.
there is with Picas.

Also I am used to working with inches so usually everything like bleeds and spacing, margins, etc... is in 1/4, 1/8 or 1/16 of inches.... or decimals... .25, .125, .0625.. I hate those...

so I figure a Pica (or 1/6 of an inch) is a nice dimension. I will just use that instead of fractions of inches for layouts now.
Now my world seems simpler.
2, 1, 0p6. That's making more sense to me. :)

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Uh oh. Once picas start to make sense, it's all over.

Way back in the dark ages, i started in print production, and i swore by picas. It's a much more accurate measurement system, and much easier once you understand it (divide 11" by 3, or 66p by 3).

I traded picas for pixels years ago, but every now and then i do some print, and it's all about picas.

d.

I have taken 3 or 4 Desktop Publishing classes throughout my schooling and all have required us to use Pica's while designing.

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Originally Posted by dlowe93

I traded picas for pixels years ago, but every now and then i do some print, and it's all about picas.

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That's the beauty of it. You don't really have to trade pixels for picas.
It's part of the same system now. :cool:

damn, i don't understand a word of what you guys are saying :)

I've actually never worked in picas. Strictly inches for docs and points for type. For the web I use all pixels. Illustrator allows for a little math in its pallets so I never had to memorize a lot of conversions. Most all printers deal with a pretty standard set of sizes anyway.

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Originally Posted by admedia

That's the beauty of it. You don't really have to trade pixels for picas.
It's part of the same system now. :cool:

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Yes. Thank you Adobe.

Although my CSS developers get all cranky when i hand them template spec files laid out in picas.

Whatever.

d.

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Originally Posted by dlowe93

Although my CSS developers get all cranky when i hand them template spec files laid out in picas.

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You know it never even occured to me until now
that I can use them in CSS?

nice one! :thumbsup:

sometimes I think you can do anything in CSS, just about everytime I cant figure something out, I find that it accepts natively the type of data I was trying to fake anyway.