Rulers

The next tool we'll look at is Rulers. This tool provides a quick and easy way to measure both distance and angles on your screen.

Click on the toolbar icon shown above and you'll see two rulers appear:

There are several elements to each ruler:

1. Calipers for measuring outside dimensions
2. Position indicators with the mouse position relative to the ruler
3. Control to toggles the second ruler
4. Displays the current length of the ruler
5. Displays the current rotation of the ruler
6. Control that adjusts the rotation
7. Control that adjusts the length

If you're measuring the dimension of an item, try turning on the calipers using Toggle Calipers in the Rulers menu. You can also use the "C" key as a shortcut to show or hide the calipers.

There are cases where the red position indicators can interfere with your work. If you'd like to remove them, just use the toggle command in the Rulers menu.

When you are rotating the ruler, you can hold down the shift key and the position will be updated in 5° increments. Likewise, the shift key will adjust the length of the ruler in 10 pixel increments.

The preferences for Rulers allow you to display deltas on a rotated ruler. The deltas indicates the horizontal and vertical distance from the ruler origin (the point where the two rulers join) to the outer-most point on the ruler's edge.

When you are done with the ruler, you can click on its toolbar icon and it will be hidden until the next time you click on the icon.

Click on the home button to return to the index or proceed to the next tool: Screens.