making the 100% real. illustrator, word, dtp in general

[Lt Major Burns]

i want to make the 100% factor on the zoom display of page real - like say, in illustrator, when i hit 100%, i can put an A4 piece of paper on the screen and it be the same size (if i'm working on A4)

is there a way to do this? i know the screen is 100ppi (apple cinema display 20")

seems a bit silly to have the option to view 100% when it actually lies to us)

[texanpenguin]

It's all about the screen density. As you said 100ppi doesn't translate to the precise right size.

If you have Tiger, you can adjust the screen density until it's perfect, if it matters that much to you.

[elander]

If you want "100%" to mean "actual size", you would have to mess around with your screen dimensions. If you can create a screen preset that shows up in System Preferences -> Display, that gives you the "correct" ppi value, it would probably work.

One caveat though: applications are a bit iffy as to what they mean by "100%". In Photoshop, the percent value has nothing at all to do with size. It's merely a number to tell you how many of the original pixels in the image that actually show up on your screen. At 100%, every pixel in the image is visible, regardless of the resolution. Mind you, they may not all be ON the screen, if you have an image with more pixels in it than your screen can handle.

One would like to think that 50% would mean that you see half of the pixels, but alas, no such luck. The percentage only takes one dimension into account, so 50% actually means that 25% of your pixels are visible.

Photoshop is a strange beast, but it is'nt the only one with strange notions of how to interpret percentages in terms of size.

So, to summarize: your chances of getting this to work properly are slim at best, and realistically non existent. Strange really, since this has been a problem in DTP for twenty years, and noone has bothered to solve it.

[Lt Major Burns]

Originally Posted by texanpenguin

It's all about the screen density. As you said 100ppi doesn't translate to the precise right size.

If you have Tiger, you can adjust the screen density until it's perfect, if it matters that much to you.

?

[Lt Major Burns]

there must be something in the programs that tells it to show it at this size - i shouldn't have to bugger around with non-native screen resolutions... (i'm on lcd)

i know about the raster-100% (photoshop), and i'm happy with that, but when you hit print size, it's wrong... i want, seeing as i have a pro computer, with a pro screen and the pro apps, to be able to proof on the fly, without having to waste ink proofing...

EDIT: ooh i'm getting all worked up about this now...

[Pengu]

i understand your pain. i always wondered why "100%" in word or whatever, wasn't A4.

[ksv]

By experimenting with A4 and A5 sheets, I found that 300 ppi documents view in actual size when scaling is at 32,85% on the 20" Apple Cinema Display. I have the older model though, the new one could be marginally different.

[Lt Major Burns]

yeah, the new ones (post-alu) are 100ppi. the acrylic 22" has the same resolutiuon (1680x1050) as the new alu 20"