4 Easy Ways To Change Units In Illustrator

This article will show you the different methods on how to change units in Illustrator for your document and artboards.

Where to Change Units in Illustrator

You can change units in Illustrator on the top menu, by selecting Illustrator > Preferences > Units for Mac or Edit > Preferences > Units for Windows. Then choose your preferred units in the General, Stroke, or Type drop-down menus.

How To Change Units In Illustrator

Step 1: Preferences

For Mac users, select Illustrator and for Windows users, select Edit from the top menu bar. Then, select Preferences and Units in the drop-down menu.

Step 2: Toggle Units Section

The Adobe Illustrator Preferences dialog box opens up. In the Units section, set your preferred units from the General, Stroke, and Type drop-down list.

You can change your units from mm to cm, convert inches to pixels and whole lot more in Illustrator.

Click the OK button to apply the changes and close the Preferences window.

If you want to change units for the document, images, and ruler, read on for more methods!

How to Change Artboard Units in Illustrator

It’s important to get the right artboard units in Illustrator before you start designing anything.

Things like editing images and aligning text in Illustrator can take hours. You don’t want to find out you’ve got the wrong units later having to redo everything again.

When you wish to change the unit measurements of Adobe Illustrator documents, the updated unit applies to all artboards you have in the whole document.

This means if you change the units of measure for one artboard, it changes for all artboards.

At the same time, you can set or change default units per document, but not for your Illustrator app. The next time you start a new project, the units of measurement in your Illustrator app update themselves to the latest document file.

But this won’t be applied to other existing documents. Existing documents will retain their own units that has been previously given until it is changed.

Well, as of now, I believe you wish to change the artboard units because you’d like your artboards based on the new units. If you need to change the artboard units in Illustrator, there are several methods available:

Method 1: Properties Panel

Step 1: Go to the top bar menu, and click Window > Properties to open the Properties panel.

Step 2: Select any artboard by clicking on it once.

Step 3: In the right-hand side panel, under Document, go to the Units section and click on the down arrow. Choose your preferred unit from the drop-down menu.

Method 2: Control Panel

Step 1: Enable the Control panel by selecting Window > Control.

Step 2: Select any artboard by clicking on it once.

Step 3: Go to the Control panel, and select the Document Setup button.

Step 4: In the Document Setup window, go to the Units section and click on the arrow pointing down. Choose your preferred unit from the drop-down menu of various document units. Then click the OK button.

Method 3: Document Setup

Step 1: Go to the File menu and select Document Setup.

Or use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Command + P for Mac.

Or Shift + Ctrl + P for Windows.

Step 2: In the Document Setup dialog box, find the Units drop-down menu.

Step 3: Choose your desired unit of measurement from the options provided and click the OK button to apply the changes.

If you realised you’ve made a mistake and wish to undo this change, you can do so by selecting Edit > Undo Document Setup.

Your units will change back to the original version.

How to Change Ruler Units in Illustrator

The Rulers‘ measurement units follow that of the document units. This means any of the methods you have used to change document units will be applied to the Ruler as well. Besides that, there is another method to change the Ruler units.

In this method, changing the Ruler units will also change the document units. Here are the steps:

Step 1: Show Rulers

Show Rulers by selecting View > Show Rulers.

Or use the keyboard shortcut Command + R for Mac.

Or Ctrl + R for Windows.

Step 2: Change Unit

With the Ruler appearing on the top and left side of your document window, bring the cursor to the ruler and do a right-click.

Select the preferred unit from the drop-down menu

With an arsenal of methods you can use to change units, you can now breeze through your projects with supersonic productivity. Do remember to preview your work before submission or publishing it.

FAQ on Changing Units in Illustrator

In general, Stroke uses Pixels, Points, Picas, Inches, Millimeters, and Centimeters, while Type units include Points, Inches, Millimeters, and Pixels. Both require different units from one another and are not affected by the document properties.

Final Thoughts: How to Change Units in Illustrator

In this comprehensive guide, we’ve explored how to change default units in Illustrator that help to enhance your overall workflow.

Different projects require different measurement systems. For instance, when designing a business card, you might prefer working with inches, while a website design project might call for pixels.

Furthermore, you can customize rulers and guides to match your preferred units, which ensures a more seamless design experience.

Before You Go…

Changing units in Illustrator is essential yet it’s just the first step. Even the world’s best designers will produce wrong results if they don’t preview their work before publishing them. Read my next article to ensure that you never make mistakes again…

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