Metric measurement units?

[seanos]

I feel like I might have asked about this before, but is there any way to make sure no part of Calbre works in inches? I’m trying to print a section of a book to PDF using the viewer and the margin options are in inches.


I’m not using conversion because there are so many options it would take a lot of testing. Conversion also uses points, which also aren’t very helpful if you’re just trying to gauge the proportion of a page or minimum margins of a printer (in mm).


I realise this is a bit peripheral for most Calibre use, but it’s still a bit surprising to see the wrong units for your locale.

[seanos]

Am I really the only person who uses Calibre without imperial measurements?

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by seanos

Am I really the only person who uses Calibre without imperial measurements?

For me, it seems to follow my Windows system settings. If I set measurements to metric, I see metric (which is my normal mode), if I set measurements to U.S., I see inches, etc. OTOH, I don't see much use of metric/US/imperial in the calibre GUI since points, pixels, etc. seem to be a lot more common.

The only place this does not apply is when I look at ebook metadata/properties where in PDF files for example, the page size use whatever measurements were set when the PDF was created which, IMHO, is the correct behaviour. So a letter size page will show as 8.50 x 11.00 inches while an A4 page will show as 210 x 297 mm.

I will admit that I never use calibre's e-book viewer for PDF since it converts to ePub before viewing. Any of the PDF viewers I have around does a better job since the conversion is not needed. Oddly, most of them do not even give margin options for PDF printing since a PDF page is corresponds to a printed page including all margins, etc.

[seanos]

Well, I’m talking about printing to PDF from Calibre Viewer, but I also see points (not centimetres or millimetres or inches) in the book conversion dialog [PDF output]. It’s great that you can use points there, but for setting margins I don’t think they mean much to the average person.

I’m not using Windows, but my Linux locale is set to ga_IE.UTF-8 and every other program shows metric.

[DNSB]

I just played with printing from calibre e-book viewer and regardless of the system setting or book metadata, the default margins were 1.000 inches. As I said, I print PDFs from other programs so never noticed this.

I suspect that changing that behaviour will require a change in calibre's code so perhaps a reports on the calibre bug report site would be the best path forward.

For what it may be worth, 72 points is equal to 1 inch (computer). On my line gauge/pica pole, 72.27 points equals 1 inch.