[thelist] Vista font sizes in CSS

Felix Miata mrmazda at ij.net
Thu Jul 5 09:57:51 CDT 2007


On 2007/07/04 13:48 (GMT+0200) Mark Howells apparently typed:

> On 2007/07/04 12:35 (GMT+0100) Robert Douglas apparently typed:

>> We're looking at introducing the Vista fonts into our current
>> font-family but have found they render quite a bit smaller than the

For most of them, closer to the size of Times New Roman than Georgia or
Verdana.

>> 'traditional' fonts. You can see a screenshot here of 3 fonts set at
>> 12px each: http://anucreative.com/test/vistafonts.gif

A more elaborate look for people who can't make out mousetype:
http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/fonts-msvistaSS.html

>> Assume I have: body { font: 12px Candara, Verdana, sans-serif; }. If a
>> user has Candara installed the font is quite small for them; If I bump
>> up the size to 14px and users *don't* have Candara installed, Verdana at
>> 14px looks awful (IMHO). What to do?

First, never size text in px. You have no idea how big a px is except
right in front of your face. In front of this face, it's about 1/4 the
size of comfortable, virtually illegible.

Next, keep your font family selection comparable in character and size.
Candara together with Verdana doesn't make it on the size basis.

> The only solution which immediately springs to mind is the classic  
> one of separate CSS for separate platforms, using a browser detect  

Is it possible to determine OS (platform) from a script? Has anyone
running Vista looked to see if http://www.microsoft.com/ gets served
anything different from Linux or XP or Mac, either source or CSS or script?

> and asuming that everyone with Vista has Candara installed. You'll  
> never gt it pixel perfect, though.

That's a virtually impossible goal anyway. CSS is not a page layout
language. Most pages thought by their creators to be px perfect are
anything but once they are zoomed so that their text is big enough to read.

Has anyone running XP installed new M$ software and found the Vista
fonts included? If the past is any indication, people running the latest
M$ Office or other M$ software are likely to have the Vista fonts.
-- 
"All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching,
rebuking, correcting, and training in righteoousness."
					2 Timothy 3:16 NIV

 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata  ***  http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/



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