Desktop Ruler

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How do I turn "Stick to Mouse" option off?

If it seems that the ruler keeps running away from the mouse so you cannot right-click on it to open the menu or at least select it to deactivate Stick to Mouse option with a hotkey (Ctrl+S), try the following:

If the ruler is in the horizontal position, try moving the mouse to the top or the bottom of the screen, depending whether the ruler is stuck below or above the mouse pointer. Analogous, if the ruler is in the vertical position, try moving the mouse to the left or the right edge of the screen, depending whether the ruler is stuck left or right from the mouse pointer.

Once you drag it to the correct edge of the screen, you will find out that the ruler stays within the screen and mouse pointer finally gets above the ruler, regardless the status of Bound to Screen option*.

In case you need to reach objects next to the screen edge, below the ruler, just left-click it and it will stick to the other side of the mouse pointer.

If you still experience problems, make sure that Hints option in Show Information submenu is turned on.

* This is done intentionally - otherwise it would get really hard to reach the menu again (i.e. Alt+Tab until the ruler is in focus and then Ctrl+S to "unstick" it from the mouse pointer)...

Q: I would like the ruler to spread across two monitors, like the old versions did before multiple monitors support was added. What should I do?

The solution is very simple and you do not need to go back to the old 1.XX versions. Just open the Manual Configuration of Multiple Monitors and tell the ruler that your two monitors are actually one wide monitor! For example, if you have two 1280x1024 displays, manually configure Desktop Ruler to one very wide 2560x1024 display.

Q: Scale on Desktop Ruler does not match scales on some other programs' rulers or it does not reflect the physical screen size. Why not and how can I fix that?

Our ruler utility is designed to provide information about on-screen bitmap graphics. It has nothing to do with vector graphics used in most text processors and drawing tools. So, just like zooming the view in your text processing program from i.e. 100% to 200% would not change the size of printed letters, Desktop Ruler cannot "know" what other applications draw on screen and what it may mean to the user. You may use custom settings for resolution, or even create a custom measuring units in order to match the scale to other applications' graphics, but we cannot guarantee it would be perfectly accurate.

The ruler scale tells you how big a bitmap on-screen picture is (in pixels) or would be if printed with selected resolution (in centimeters or inches).

Please read about the Precise Measuring Tool to learn more about on-screen measuring.

Q: Why transparency settings do not work on my Windows 9x/Me?

Transparency effect for any, not just our ruler window (yes, ruler is a window too - just a little bit modified), is actually a Microsoft Windows feature, introduced in version 2000 and kept in later editions (like XP, for instance).

Transparency effect on older Windows platforms could be done by copying anything below the ruler and then combining it with ruler graphics. But since older operating systems are usually running on older (and slower) computers and we need to perform such graphical combining many times a second to get smooth movements, ruler would take too much system resources and become an obstacle instead of useful tool. Therefore, transparency feature under Windows 9x or Me is definitely not supported and will not be in further releases of Desktop Ruler.