[thelist] CSS Font Sizes, was one more thing about...

Charles F. Johnson charles at littlegreenfootballs.com
Sat Feb 24 11:36:47 CST 2001


Calum I Mac Leod <calum at ciml.co.uk> typed:

thanks for the post, calum. you're correct about the screen  resolution
differences -- that's the main cause of font size discrepancies. although
(pardon my pedantry) "dots per inch" is really print terminology. "pixels
per inch" is a better way to say it.

things would be a lot easier for web designers today if Bill Gates et al had
followed the Mac's early adoption of "1 pixel=1 point". I've often wondered
if they chose different schemes just to be ornery, or if there's a logical
reason for it. (i've never heard one...)

> px is slightly better for screen use (mainly because a CSS px does *not*
> always equal a pixel) but doesn't take into account user preferences.

with mac ie5 and mozilla/n6 user preferences aren't an issue, since font
size can easily be adjusted even if specified in pixels. it's only* the pc
vesions of ie5+ that don't let pixel fonts be resized. (of course, in this
case *only* refers to 90%+ of the browsers in use. <grin>) and of course,
the truly geeky browser user also has the option to use a custom stylesheet.

zeldman eloquently and thoroughly makes the case for using pixels here:

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/fear4/

not to totally control the display (it's pointless to try, no pun intended),
but to establish a reasonable starting point. if you don't use pixels, it's
very easy to end up in a festering morass of  browser-dependent stylesheets
-- exactly what CSS is supposed to avoid. feh.

another approach, if you're *really* concerned about not violating user
preferences, is to eschew font specifications entirely. use nothing at all.
another good article on A List Apart:

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/dao/index.html

but i think most people surfing the web actually *like* diversity in their
displays, and probably don't override a page's fonts very often unless it's
simply unreadable. (like some of cnet's pages are on a mac...)

charles johnson
lgf web design
http://littlegreenfootballs.com





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