Instant InDesign: Designing Templates for Fast and Efficient Page Layout

Measuring the Position of Frames

To make onscreen measurements, you need to establish a point of origin and a point of reference. The location of the zero point determines the point of origin, whereas a selected frame’s reference point determines the point of reference. The X and Y values displayed in the Transform and Control panels refer to the selected reference point on a frame’s bounding box relative to the location of the zero point.

So, if you want to find out how far the top-left corner of a frame is from the top left margin of the page, you need to move the zero point to the margin and then specify the top-left reference point in the reference point locator.

The X and Y position of selected frames can be measured from three places: ...