100% page size is not full size....(PICS!)

This question is "100%" justified and the answers he has received so far are no help at all.

I too would like to know why the Mac version continues to have this terrible default.

There's a target monitor section under web options where you can set screen dimensions and pixel depth, but it doesn't help to make changes there.

Of course on a PC, WYSIWYG, so only Mac users suffer this (thanks, again, Microsoft).

Ken

It is an issue, and it is a current inadequacy of the Mac. There is no widely implemented way to tell apps what dpi the screen is. Without this information, the physical size of "100%" or "Actual Size" cannot be calculated.

I said "no widely implemented" because for a couple of versions now, OS X has included a Resolution Independence function that has been described in developer documentation but still not widely implemented in applications. Resolution Independence would allow the calibration of size to match the real world. But not currently.

Some apps do let you perform this calibration. Photoshop for instance. You can enter the true dpi of the monitor and then the Actual Size command will actually be actual size.

Why? What difference does it make whether or not it's exactly life size, as long as you can read the text on the screen?
The Mac OS is not Windoze. If you prefer Windoze, that's what you should use.

One of the major reasons the Mac first appealed to people in its early history was the concept of WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get. The ongoing failure of OS X to help you Actual Size display as actual size goes against this core concept of what the Mac is all about. That is why I think it's wrong to discount this idea. This is an area where the Mac should be not just as good as Windows, but better. To tell people to go over there for the lack of this feature is a cop-out and lets OS X off easy.

Mac OS X continues to assume 72 dpi even though the average resolution of a current Apple display is around 100 dpi. This is leading to the severe display size mismatch. Apple first talked about solving this problem in 2004 for Tiger, and again for Leopard, but even up through Snow Leopard now, the capability to deal with this problem is still less developed than in Windows.

You may want to send Apple feedback to get them to finish fixing this problem once and for all.

eww wrote:
N23, can you or anyone else explain to me in concrete, practical terms why anyone would ever need to see the document they're working on at exactly life size?

I think it would be more relevant to ask why someone would not! It's kind of like asking why Apple ColorSync is necessary because why would we want to see colors exactly? Or why Apple bothered to make smooth outline fonts on the Mac since you could already get a sense of the text from using jaggy bitmap fonts. Macs are supposed to be about getting all of those little hassles out of the way so we can just do our stuff.

But I'll answer your question. There has been more than one time when I have been typing in Word or laying out a page, then I print it out, and I'm surprised at how different the print looks. And the reason is obvious. I was not viewing the document at a real world size. So the type and objects that were scaled and arranged at a certain size turn out to look too big on paper, the wrong visual scale. Why? Because we're looking at it too small on the screen. To get it right, it is necessary for users like sdschramm and I to figure out what zoom percentage will make the document the same size on screen as it will be when it gets printed. Then it is easier to avoid font size/readability/spacing surprises, and if you need even more practical reasons, fewer wasted sheets of paper and cartridges of expensive ink. There is already an Actual Size command there, but it isn't true.

As I said, the size mismatch is inconsistent with the Mac's traditional WYSIWYG advantage over Windows, and that's why the real question is, why would you want the screen size to basically lie when it says "Actual Size?" Want to take a stab at that?

I've provided enough info, evidence and pictures to prove the problem at hand.

You're telling the wrong people. None of us here develop software for Apple. As is often said here, use http://www.apple.com/feedback/ to actually pass on information to Apple.

If you want Apple to notice, send a bug report or an enhancement request via its Bug Reporter system. To do this, join the Apple Developer Connection (ADC)—it's free and available for all Mac users and gets you a look at some development software. Since you already have an Apple username/ID, use that. Once a member, go to Apple BugReporter and file your bug report or enhancement request. The nice thing with this procedure over submitting feedback is that you get a response and a follow-up number; thus, starting a dialog with engineering.

Hi Scott,

This isn't the sort of thing that "gets fixed" through an OS update, or which you can expect to see "change" with new hardware etc.

It is actually dependent on changes at the application level. Apple might decide to add such a facility directly to Pages at some stage, though it is worth bearing in mind that doing so would actually add quite a significant load of recalculation etc every time the screen is redrawn, given the array of different monitor resolutions and GPUs, current, past, and future, that the program would have to cope with.

(You might find https://developer.apple.com/mac/library/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/ HiDPIOverview/Introduction/Introduction.html interesting if you haven't seen it, by the way)

But all Mac applications at least already provide a quick way of actually "seeing" the result at pretty close to exact dimensions.

You simply use the Print command to "Open PDF in Preview" - the application you mentioned yourself earlier. Many people think of "Preview" as essentially just a PDF viewer , intended to avoid the need to install an Adobe product, but in fact it also integrated into the operation of any Mac application that has printing capability. In this capacity it does what its name suggests - provides a well nigh exact "preview" of a document you are going to print. Hey, you can even use it in Safari! Just click on the "Actual Size" command in the Preview "View" menu after you have used "Open PDF in Preview" from the print window.

Cheers

Rod

All I want to do is type a "word" (pages) document at 100% actual size.

Why? What difference does it make whether or not it's exactly life size, as long as you can read the text on the screen?

The Mac OS is not Windoze. If you prefer Windoze, that's what you should use.

OS X uses an assumed 72DPI, so when you're displaying something at 100% it is showing the image at a resolution of 72DPI. If your hardware does not have exactly 72 pixels per physically measured inch (many do not, based on pixel density) then pages will appear larger or smaller than an actual piece of paper.

This is why you can have a 1920x1200 resolution on a 24" monitor, a 26" monitor, and a 30" monitor. The computer does not know the monitor's physical dimensions, just the overall number of pixels on the screen that it can work with.

I don't argue that there should not be an option to see the page or document on screen at its actual size — only that it doesn't much matter that there isn't.

WYSIWYG is an unattainable Grail. When you view a page image at its actual size on the screen, whether you do so by calculating a display percentage, or by trial and error, or by invoking a command that does the work for you, you are seeing an actual-sized page that contains only a rough approximation of what your printed page will look like. Your fonts are smoothed (blurred) or jaggy, and your graphics are anti-aliased (blurred) or jaggy too. The higher the resolution of your monitor, the more accurate and convincing the approximation will be, but it's still a coarse raster image. To see what the page will actually look like printed, you still have to print it.

I admit that with the prevalence of flat LCD displays now, it has actually become possible to hold a printed page up in front of the screen and align objects in the displayed image to it fairly well. In the old CRT display days, it was a joke to do that: anyone who did it was about as craftsmanlike as a carpenter who rounds every measurement to the nearest 1/4" and calls it good. Even now, someone who wants to align something in a new document precisely with something in a printed document takes measurements and uses the rulers in his layout application, instead of holding a page up to the screen.

I'll let this rest now. I agree that the Mac OS shouldn't lag behind Windoze in any respect that matters, and if this one matters to some of you, fine, you should push for Apple to close the gap. I made a point a long time ago of knowing exactly how many pixels per inch each of my displays really has, and if I were given the opportunity to enter that into a box somewhere that provided the option of showing any page at actual size, I'd fill in the blank and I might even display a page that way from time to time — though I do have that option in Photoshop now, and I never use it.

I'll let this rest too, but only after clarifying a couple of points 🙂

eww wrote:
WYSIWYG is an unattainable Grail...it's still a coarse raster image. To see what the page will actually look like printed, you still have to print it.

This is true. However, we are not talking about aiming for unattainable WYSIWYG. We are talking about getting 90-95% of the way there. As it is with ColorSync, and outline fonts, and all of the other technologies that made Apple the preferred computer for graphics. None of those is an exact substitute for print, but we all appreciate how much they close the gap. The point with the view scaling is the same. Just reduce the obvious discrepancy so much that it makes a real difference in efficiency.

Second, I can tell you from training people that the question of "Why doesn't Actual Size work right" is a question that comes up all the time. We have the most advanced multi-core CPUs and GPUs in the world, and we can't see a page at an accurate size...it doesn't seem right.

I hadn't really thought about this issue until yesterday when I put together a picture in Pages and then saved it as a PDF. I had been thinking it was about the size that I wanted it but Preview showed it about twice the size ... because it has the wonderful preference "Size on screen equals size on printout" vs. "1 point equals 1 screen pixel". Could not Pages simply have the same setting? It knows how big an A4 is, for instance, and even Apple's 'zooming' doesn't always work quite correctly.

If you would like to get it exactly right, choose "fit to width" and then resize the image until it the magnification is 137%. I feel your frustration.

FYI: programs such as photoshop and lyx allow you to set the dpi of the screen in the preferences producing magnifications which match your screen.

MFYI: If you are using keynote, I recommend you choose the custom pixel size option from the first tab in the inspector and set it to your screen - not the best option, but hopefully helpful.