# Ruler measurements incorrect



## caper115 (Dec 17, 2010)

I'm not sure whether this is an Office 2010 or Windows 7 problem. If I choose View 100% in WORD the page view is smaller than the actual page measurements. If i display the rulers, they are off too. Inch on the screen is smaller than a true inch. It's also happening in Photoshop Elements where it is even more of a problem.

Adele B


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## DonaldG (Aug 23, 2007)

Tha actual size on the screen will depend on the resolution & size of your screen

The measurements in Word & Photoshop are set for the resolution of printers.


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

What the rulers are showing really is more of a guide to what you're typing or creating related to a unit of measure, not really that you could hold a ruler to the screen and it would be an inch. Since virtually everything in windows and office is scalable, the actual measurement of things is not accurate but it is proportional.


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## pat mcgroin (May 1, 2009)

Look at it this way.

At 100% you have the ability to see all of your page. Each increment above that will zoom into the page, in order to do more detailed work within that area.

The rulers truly are accurate in relation to the page size that is selected. For example an 8 1/2 x 11 page size; 4 inches on the horizontal ruler is surely 4 inches from the left side of the sheet. 

This can be confusing if margins are involved and you may want the zero coordinate to be located somewhere else. By grabbing the zero intersection, it is possible to move it to a desired location.

Another helpful feature are the gridlines. When turned on it is possible to click and hold a ruler, then pull onto the page, a non printing blue gridline that can be set anywhere that you would like. These are very helpful when many small items are to be placed in exact and equal intervals. This technique works in Word, Photoshop, Pagemaker and many other programs.


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## caper115 (Dec 17, 2010)

None of this solves the issue of gedtting an actual print size which can be important if you're trying to judge font size and line spacing for readability. I found an article about Photoshop which gave the cause of the problem there, screen image being set to 72ppi and described a fix. The article is Fixing the View>Print Size Command by Ben Willmore in Photosop Mastery. I suspect WORD or Office has some similar presumption as to screen image but it probably can't be tweaked. Following Willmore's theory, however,I found I can get actual paper size if i Zoom to 110% which I will do the next time I'm trying to decide how much I can cram and preserve readability.


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## macropod (Apr 11, 2008)

Hi caper115,

Unless Windows has some way of telling Word how wide your screen is, there is no possible way for Word to accurately calculate the actual width. The best it can do is to estimate it. If you want to work with the actual width, simply place a piece of paper over the document display and adjust the zoom percentage until you get the nearest possible match.


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