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Unexpected ruler subdivisions are a known issue, reported since years and logged as tag afd-3643 for instance. https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/search/&q=subdivision ruler&quick=1&search_and_or=and&sortby=relevancy

Currently (as of Novembre 2018), the 'Affinities' display nice-looking and readable rulers (fine). Unfortunately, the subdivisions of these rulers are often a bit odd, so that seemingly obvious and important numbers are not shown (it's better than with some programs, but worse than with others). Let's take the millimetre rulers as an example: Here, the 4 subdivision ticks appear at the values 44, 48, 52 and 56, which is not so nice. It would be nicer if there were only three ticks, at 45, 50 and 55. Similar problem here: The large ticks appear as above, so that the number 50, which I myself would expect to be more important than 52, gets a short tick instead of a large one. In order not to get too many ticks, I would suggest a large tick at 50, and small ticks with a distance of 2. Similar problem here: The large ticks show up as above, being 8 times the distance of the small ones. Powers of 2 work quite well with people who are used to work with inches, but all units that usually use powers of 10 yield strange results with halfening as shown. In this case, I recommend an additional number at 50 (there's lots of space for it), large ticks at 45 and 55 and small ticks with a distance of 1. Overall, more than 4 small ticks in a row more or less make my eyes glaze over in confusion... Unfortunately, the algorithm for really nice ruler divisions is rather complicated and sometimes even depends on the preferences of the user. An old vector illustration program I know (Professional Draw from 1992) therefore even offered two subdivision styles for inches: Inches (with continuous halfening) and decimal inches... Andreas Weidner

Marc, my replies were based on your thought ... Time efficiency is of course not the only relevant aspect to prefer one workflow to another. Also, my suggestions and thoughts were meant as help to understand the existing workflow options and possible, reasonable reasons in the developer view that may have prevented specific improvements so far - not to avoid a feature request. Note that in APub you can apply more than 1 master to both master and document pages. Therefore a custom ruler origin of a master shouldn't appear on a document page.* Furthermore you can have different page sizes within one document, even different for master and document pages, therefore a custom ruler position on one document page isn't transferred to other pages. This way moving the ruler origin rather isn't "almost useless" but a sensible adjustment which needs sensitive attention and the users memory. EDIT: * as long the ruler origin cannot be set relative to a spreads dimension (e.g. bleed, spine, ...) but absolute only No question here, at the ruler only, still is room for improvement, too, e.g. an UI to set the ruler origin numerically or to set it for a bunch of selected page icons in pages panel, or an UI to reset the origin back to default for the entire document with 1 click. Not to forget the fix of the varying subdivision units within the ruler, which currently changes with zoom levels and can make it hard to check a position without additional calculation. ... – However, there are already so many inquiries, suggestions and complaints that it may be more successful ('sensible') to ask for the nice-to-have but not essential ones, only after a few later versions of the app.

+ 1 … + including the fix to the really weird ruler's subdivision rules for document units in decimal system.

Hi Antony parks, Welcome to Affinity Forums Your screenshot show 20 subdivisions (not 25). The number of subdivisions is dynamic and depends on the zoom level - the more you zoom in the more subdivisions will appear for the same distance in the ruler (similar logic for the opposite - the more you zoom out the less subdivisions you will see for the same distance). There's no way to set a fixed number of subdivisions for the rulers, but you can set a grid with the number or divisions and subdivisions you want instead (and also set a different colour for the subdivisions if needed). In the screenshots below i've created a document (set to centimetres) and also created a grid with the spacing set to 1 cm (red) and 10 subdivisions (grey) (menu View > Grid and Axis Manager...) so each subdivision represents 1mm - the grid is fixed so it doesn't change when you zoom in/out as the ruler does. Setting the zoom to 250% on my screen will show a mark for each millimetre in the rulers (so 10 subdivisions - matching the grid specs i set). Setting the zoom to around 380% already displays two marks per millimetre so each mark now represents half millimetre (that is 20 subdivisions for the same 1 cm). I've attached the afdesign file below in case you want to take a look. Here's the afdesign file: ruler_marks.afdesign

I've experienced the same problem in Adobe Illustrator. One work-around is to draw in 1 : 72 scale. Set your ruler units to picas. Set up your document grid to show major divisions at 1 pica with 12 subdivision. If it's necessary to show your final work at 1/4" scale (1 : 48), select all of your final drawing and apply the appropriate scale factor – in this case, 1.5x (72 ÷ 48 = 1.5). It's not a perfect solution, but at least you can work with a snapping grid and your brain can easily translate picas to feet, and points to inches. A related work-around, if your working in metric units, would be to set up your document grid with major divisions at 1 centimeter with 10 subdivisions. The other work-around for imperial units (feet and inches) is to use the Grids and Axes Manager to set up a document grid where the major grid divisions are equal to your scale unit (1/4", 1/2", or whatever) with 12 subdivisions. This approach lets you snap lines and objects to an appropriately scaled grid, but the drawback is that you cannot enter values in the length, width, or height fields that correspond neatly to scaled inches.