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



## Lt Major Burns (May 15, 2005)

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)


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## texanpenguin (May 15, 2005)

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.


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## elander (May 16, 2005)

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.


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## Lt Major Burns (May 16, 2005)

texanpenguin said:
			
		

> 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.




?


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## Lt Major Burns (May 16, 2005)

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...


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## Pengu (May 16, 2005)

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


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## ksv (May 16, 2005)

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.


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## Lt Major Burns (May 16, 2005)

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


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## RacerX (May 16, 2005)

Lt Major Burns said:
			
		

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


"100%" is based on 72dpi... if your display is at 100dpi, then to make something actual (physical) size you would need to display at 139%.


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## Pardus (May 16, 2005)

i dont think you could really ask the software to do it. this something you just have to figure out and adjust settings for your monitor size and resoltion. for instance i have a 21" monitor and if I had a 15" monitor both running at 1024x768 and had an image at 100% and actually measured them on my screen with ruler they would be completely different sizes. I have wanted to have actually size a few times and actually pulled out a ruler and adjusted the zoom so that it showed up to match.


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## Lt Major Burns (May 16, 2005)

yeah just done some fiddlin.  in illustrator, with a 100ppi screen (all new apple cinema displays), 136% is exactly right.

brainstorming works. i thought they would be a much harder way of doing that...


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## Natobasso (May 16, 2005)

You could go backwards and measure your required dimensions on a piece of A4 or a5 paper and then create your document to those specs rather than trying to depend on the computer to give you 100%. 

I find View/Actual Size to be pretty close most of the time, though never exactly right, in Illustrator so I always take it with a grain of salt. Keep a ruler handy and match it to your program's ruler to see how far off your Actual Size really is.

It's like WYSIWYG for colors. You just have to trust that you'll be in the ballpark because it's an imperfect science at the best of times.


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## Lt Major Burns (May 16, 2005)

yeah it always prints out when proofing a lot darker than it says
except green which is sometimes lighter...


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