[thelist] relative font sizes

[Nick Wilson]

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* and then George Klingenhoffer declared....
> Has anyone used relative font sizes to any effect?  I want to use it but
> I'm having problems getting it to be consistent with all browsers.
> Netscape scales down a few pixel sizes lower than IE and IE5 is apparently
> smaller than IE6.
>
> For example: style="font-size:10px;" vs. style="font-size:xx-small;"

You *can't* make it consistent across browsers and IMO you should not
try to. Design a flexible layout with flexible elements for a _flexible_
medium. It is no longer acceptable to plonk a 600px table in the middle
of the viwport, hard code it's text-sizing and call it a website. It's
not 1996 any more.

That said, I've no idea of how you do things and my little rant is not
aimed at you. If you want to use relative font-sizing, and as a
concientious designer you should, try using something similar to this:

Assuming you use style-sheets to set these details...

Don't set a base font size on the body tag.
Set regular body text at 90%
Set smaller sidebar/nav links etc at 75%
Set copyright etc at 50%

This test page uses it and I've found that it works pretty good across
everything I've tried it on:
www.explodingnet.com/CSS/TextSizing/telehuset/test.html

Have fun!
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