rulers don't correspond to page size

Question

rulers don't correspond to page size

When I turn on rulers (horizontal and vertical) the scale is incorrect. The horizontal ruler says the screen is 11 inches when the page is printed it is in fact less than 8 1/2. The vertical ruler shows 12 1/2 when it prints it is actually only about 9 1/2 inches. As is it is totally useless in laying out the information.

I can't find any place to correct this. Preferences is limited to metric or english.

Before you answer please know that I am not talking about putting a ruler to the screen. I understand the concept of scalability. I just want the ruler to work in numbers like it does in pages. When I format the page size it shows what fits on an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper.

Thanks in advance

ehw

iMac (27-inch, Late 2013), OS X El Capitan (10.11.5)

Posted on Jun 5, 2016 12:43 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 5, 2016 4:43 PM in response to Barry

Hi Barry, thank you for your reply, especially with the screen shots. This is not what I see when I open a file in numbers. At the point where the page break will occur (in portrait mode) instead of showing 6 1/2 inches it shows 11.

Oh wait I think I discovered the problem, although I’m not sure how it got there. When I look at the print screen Inspector (is that what you call it? - it’s entitled “Print Setup” about a third of the way down it shows “Content Scale” It shows to be set at 43%. There is also a window that shows “Fit”. I can check it or not check it but it seems to make no difference. If I move the sliding scale the amount printed changes.

I said in my original post that I understood scaling, but I didn’t realize the software was scaling the printed page to fit.

So now my question is where can I learn more about this particular setting.

Thanks,

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Answer 2

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Jun 5, 2016 2:42 PM in response to ehw from Austin

Hi ehw,

In editing mode, the rulers tell you where objects are positioned with respect to the top left corner of a canvas with no right or bottom boundaries. "Pages" do not exist in this mode.

If your page will be defined as a US letter sheet, with one inch margins, then you will have area measuring nine inches in the long direction and six and one half inches in the short direction available for print. Pages will break the table as necessary to keep the full width of the 'last' column and the full height of the 'last' row on the page.

On the screen, in editing mode, I've set an arrow (from the Shapes button menu) at 0 and 9 inches on the horizontal ruler, and at 0 and 6.5 inches on the vertical ruler, the positions of the print area boundary on page 1, when the page is defined:

After pressing command-P, here's what I see in Print view:

Sending it to the printer gives what's shown above (graphic objects will print outside the page margins). The left and right borders of the table are about 1/32" too close together; the points of the arrows marking 0 and 6 1/2" on the vertical ruler are accurate to closer than I'm able to estimate.

Should you want to make a request to Apple for change in the way Rulers operate in Numbers, please use the Feedback channel—Numbers (menu) > Provide Numbers Feedback—where you can make your needs known to Apple.

Here, you are talking to users of the product, not to Apple.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 3

Barry

Level 9

60,023 points

Jun 5, 2016 5:57 PM in response to ehw from Austin

Hi ewh,

I had considered that setting as a possibility, but ran out of time before getting to it in my earlier post. You may have hit it accidentally at some point.

The Fit button is not a checkbox or a toggle. Clicking it automatically rescales the content to fit the width of your defined page. "Fit" in this case means "fit between the left and right margins."

It's a useful feature, provided your content is close to the printable width, and needs only a small adjustment to 'fit'.

Clicking the Fit button again has no effect. To restore the printing scale to 100%, use the slider, use the stepper, or double-click in the box and type 100.

If the table (or other content) is too long rather than too wide, Fit won't help get it onto a single page. For this case, the 'manual' tools (slider, stepper, keyboard) are the tols to use to set the scaling for printing.

Regards,

Barry

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Answer 4

Jun 5, 2016 5:58 PM in response to Barry

Thank you Barry. Really appreciate your promptness and knowledge.

ehw

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