[thelist] Font sizing revisited

[Bruce Heerssen]

martin.p.burns at uk.pwcglobal.com wrote:

> Memo from Martin P Burns of PricewaterhouseCoopers
> 
> -------------------- Start of message text --------------------
> 
> Hi Bruce
> 
> Yeah, ems are a great theory. Shame they don't work.

+1

> The normal 2 options for specifying font sizes are
> 1) Specify in px (if you allow your users to change the base sizes using
> http://evolt.org/User_Font_Control/ then you still have user-flexibility)
> 2) Don't specify them at all (which gives your users total control)

Well, that's great Martin, especially option 2, which I do use when I can 
get away with it - but I was really asking about absolute sizing (which I 
mistakenly called 'named sizes' in my original post). Although the alistapart
article you linked to does mention 'larger,smaller', these are relative sizes 
and subject to the same problems as em's. The W3C has the 
following to say on the matter:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS1#font-size
<quote>

<absolute-size>
An <absolute-size> keyword is an index to a table of font sizes computed 
and kept by the UA. Possible values are: [ xx-small | x-small | small | 
medium | large | x-large | xx-large ]. On a computer screen a scaling 
factor of 1.5 is suggested between adjacent indexes; if the 'medium' 
font is 10pt, the 'large' font could be 15pt. Different media may need 
different scaling factors. Also, the UA should take the quality and 
availability of fonts into account when computing the table. The table 
may be different from one font family to another.
 
</quote>

My question is: is using this method a good idea -- iow, how well supported is
this method? I have yet to see a good discussion of this method. I was 
hoping to get that here.

Thanks again,
-Bruce