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- [Instructor] In this
movie, we'll take a look

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at the various units of
measure that are made available

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to you by Illustrator,

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and we'll see how they
compare to each other,

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as well as how you can
switch them out on the fly.

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And believe it or not, this might be

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the most exciting movie in this chapter.

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Now, you can work with
inches or millimeters

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or what have you, but
throughout this course,

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I'll be working with the
default unit of measure

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associated with the US English
version of Illustrator,

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and that's points.

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The reason that points
are so useful is that

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they are a very tiny unity of measure,

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and they allow you to
precisely measure type,

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line weights, and things like
the way different strokes

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line up with each other,
so that your artwork

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looks picture-perfect.

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And so, let's see what that looks like.

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I'll go up to the file menu
and choose the New command,

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or again, you can press that
keyboard shortcut of Ctrl-N

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here on the PC or CMD-N on the Mac.

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And here I am looking at
the specs for that document

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that I created in the previous movie.

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And so, as you can see,
the unit is set to inches

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because that's the unit
I used last time around.

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Illustrator has always been
great about remembering

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your last operation in any given session,

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which is generally a wonderful thing,

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but as I say, the default
unit of measure is points.

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Now, I want you to see how
these units are organized.

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We have five units that are
associated with print documents,

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and then, we have pixels, which
is typically your best unit

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when you're creating screen graphics,

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either for the web or a device.

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But for now, we're
going to limit ourselves

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to these first five.

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And so, what we have here
are points, picas and inches,

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all of which are Imperial units,

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and then we have the metric units,

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millimeters and centimeters.

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So, very likely, even if you have

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no idea what a centimeter is,

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which you will by the end of this movie,

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you know that it's equal
to ten millimeters.

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But what in the world is
going on with the others?

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All right, so, I'll go ahead and show you

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by closing out of this dialogue box,

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and then, I'll switch to a document

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that I've created in advance,

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which compares all five
of the print units.

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Now, Americans in particular
have a habit of just assuming

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everyone knows what's going
on with imperial units,

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but it's worth reviewing,

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even if you think you already know.

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First, 12 points make up
what's known as a pica,

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and then six picas fit inside of an inch.

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And so, what that mean is,
12 times six, or 72 points,

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fit inside an inch.

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Now, just so you have an
idea of what that looks like,

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the distance between these
two red lines here is an inch.

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Now, I'm not suggesting
you whip out a ruler

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and measure the lines in the videos.

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That's not going to work,
because we all have our screens

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set to different resolutions.

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But, insofar as this particular
document is concerned,

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the distance from one red line to the next

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is exactly one inch.

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Meanwhile, the distance from
one black line to the next

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is one pica, and finally,
each one of these lines

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except for the arrow
lines, is one point thick.

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Now, I want you to see
that even though one point

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or 1/72 of an inch, sounds pretty thin,

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these lines are actually pretty meaty,

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which is why you can go thinner still,

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as in the case of these
arrow lines right here,

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which are just a half-point thick.

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Now, for those of you

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who are more comfortable
with the metric system,

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an inch is about 25
and a half millimeters,

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a pica is a little more
than four millimeters,

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and a point is slightly more
than a third of a millimeter.

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That last bit, the fact that
three points very nearly

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exactly fit into a millimeter,

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is the part that you want to remember.

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And so, to give you a sense
for what that looks like,

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these two red lines are still
an inch apart from each other.

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Each of the black lines
is a centimeter apart,

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so, we have about two and a
half centimeters per inch.

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And then, each of these lines
is one millimeter thick,

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or roughly three points across.

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So, what we have here is
some very thick lines indeed,

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which is why designers across the world

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tend to favor points, even
if those same designers

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are more comfortable
with the metric system.

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Now, the great thing about Illustrator is,

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it really doesn't care
which unit you prefer,

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and it allows you to
overwrite units on the fly.

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And you do that by, once again,
going up to the file menu

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and choosing the new
command, and I'll go ahead

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and switch my unit of measure
to points, as by default,

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at which point I can see that
the width of this document

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is going to be 432 points.

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Well, I've been working
with points and picas

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for more than 30 years now,
but I still couldn't tell you

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what a width of 432 points looks like.

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It's just too big.

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And so, let's say I want the width to,

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in fact, be eight inches.

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And so, I'll just go ahead
and click in a width value,

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which selects the whole
thing, and I'll dial an eight,

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followed by the letters IN,
the IN being for inches.

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And then, I'll press the tab key,

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and notice that Illustrator goes ahead

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and converts from inches

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to the active unit, points, on the fly.

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And so, apparently, eight
times 72 equals 576 points.

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You can do the same with metric units.

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And so, for example, I can
change the height value

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to 500mm, for millimeters,
and then press shift-tab

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to back up to the width value.

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And notice that Illustrator is once again

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converting that information on the fly.

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Or, I could change the width value

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to 100cm, for centimeters,
and press the tab key

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in order to run that conversion.

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And it gets even simpler, by the way.

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If I want to restore a
height value of 8 inches,

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I could just enter

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eight followed by the double
quote character, like so,

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and then press the tab
key, and Illustrator,

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once again, runs that conversion.

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All right, now, let's say

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I want to change the bleed to two picas.

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In that case, I could
click in the top value

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and enter 2p, the P stands for picas,

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whereas PT, as you can see
over here, stands for points.

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But I'll just enter 2p
and press the tab key,

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and notice that Illustrator converts

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the four linked bleed values

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to two times 12 points per pica,

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which is 24 points in all.

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If I wanted two picas, six
points, then I would enter

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2p6, like so, so wherever the P lands,

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divides the picas on the left
from the points on the right.

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And so, now, if I press the tab key,

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Illustrator does the math,
which is two times 24 plus six,

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and we get 30 points of bleed.

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You can even do basic math if you like.

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I could enter 3", or three
inches, followed by /4,

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that is, divided by four,
and that will give me

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3/4 of an inch, which,
when I press the tab key,

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converts to 54 points.

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So, just remember, if you
want to run those conversions

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on the fly, then all you need to know is

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double quote for inches,
CM for centimeters,

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and MM or just one M all
by itself for millimeters,

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and finally P for picas and PT for points.

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And that's how you work with
the various units of measure,

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specifically, the
international design standards,

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picas and points, here
inside Illustrator CC.