Thank you though for the zoom tinkering suggestion. That's what I ended up doing (before I saw you post). Now, whenever you want to view your design at 'full' size, just set the zoom in Affinity to 132%, and you will be seeing the design at 100%, although the page rulers won't agree. The zoom level will probably be something silly like 132% or whatever. Do not use the Affinity rulers for this!!!Īdjust the zoom level in Designer until your drawn ruler is exactly one inch on the screen. The easiest way round it is to draw an object one inch on the screen. If they don't, it suggests the display is not using the native screen resolution. This is independent of the DPI setting of the document or the PPI of the screen - the onscreen & real rulers always take into account the scale of the screen resolution for the actual size view setting, so at the native resolution they should match. If instead I set my iMac use a non-native screen resolution, I get results that are proportional to the difference in scale. For example, using the non-native resolution of 2048 by 1152 pixels on my iMac, since 2560/2048 = 1.25, for me an inch on screen is displayed as 1.25 inches long. But I get the same results (the onscreen & real rulers matching) on my 27' iMac using its native screen resolution of 2560 by 1440 pixels, or my wife's 21.5' iMac & it native screen resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. using a Mac, in this case one of the 13' MacBook Air models, all of which have a native screen resolution of 1440 by 900 pixels. If you are using a loptop I am not sure you have a monitor that more or less does this, but you need to know the size of his monitor for this to be useful. You would be able to adjust that until hopefully, your monitor is displaying one inch at exactly one inch. Try setting your monitor to different display resolutions until you find one that closely displays one inch as one inch. Most separate monitors have a horizontal and vertical adjustment. In Windows, right click on the background and there is a choice Software simply cannot know the settings such as size, resolution or any adjustments you have set on your monitor. You will see that the display inch varies in size a lot from 1920 x 1080, which is what I was trying to explain. Set Designer in inches so you have a ruler as a reference, then change the display resolution of your monitor to something like 1440 x 900.

I suspect it is currently at 1920 x 1080 (?). What you can try is to change the display resolution of your monitor. If the display is on a 15.6 ' monitor for a laptop, that is one thing but I can set my 27' monitor to the same 1440 x 900 resolution However, because my monitor is 27', at 1440 my inch is much bigger than an inch. What you will need to do is find a monitor (or display settings) that displays one inch at a physical monitor have a monitor that more or less does this, but you need to know the size of his monitor for this to be useful. The issues is with your monitor (or its settings) not with the software.Ī monitor can display at many different resolutions and sizes and to a point, you are right, 'Actual Size' is a bit misleading because Affinity has no way of knowing what 'actual size' is on a display, like PPI, DPI and so on. No you were clear, but what you ask is impossible because your monitor is not displaying an inch at one inch. I could see my project at 100% accuracy with just the click of a button. I previously was always working in vector based programs (not Affinity Designer, though that was on my to purchase list), and never had this problem. (Because there is a big difference in how something looks on fabric when it's either 1 inch or 1.5 inch, or even 0.5 inch. I'm not asking to work at this size the entire time, but I just occasionally. I literally just need to be able to occasionally check that the object I'm making is accurate real life/print size while I'm working. Yes, I can see that its at 17.2% (first image) and 100% (second image), but neither one of them are correct. I have a 15 inch monitor btw, so I should be able to see the majority of my project, again that's not the issue), and I should be able to line up a ruler and see that 1 inch is actually 1 inch. If this is not the case, than Affinity is using misleading verbage for 'Actual Size'. If something is set at 12 inches by 12 inches, and I ask to see it's actual size, then the project should 12 inches by 12 inches (and require me to scroll up and down, and left or right depending on the size of my monitor. To see Real Life Actual Size (print), it shouldn't matter what my monitor size is (unless I want to see the whole thing in one go, which I'm not asking for) Okay, this is just making me feel even more dumb, or maybe I didn't explain my needs properly.

Real life sized ruler