[thelist] Weird font size difference in FF on OSX

[Stuart Young]

Any font size detectives out there that can solve this one?

I recently had an argument with a designer who sub-contracted me to do the
HTML/CSS for her design.

She asked me to reduce the font size. So I did. A week later, exasperated
she gets back to me "why haven't you reduced the font size?" I have, I told
her. "It looks the same on my computer" she says. Aha, lets solve that I
thought.

1. She cleared her cache to make sure she was seeing the upto date CSS file.
2. She made sure her font size settings were normal, (she went View -> Text
Size -> Normal in Firefox)
3. Her Firefox base font size is the default setting of Times/Times New
Roman 16 pt. (the Content tab in Firefox Options/Preferences).
4. She has not applied any changes from default font size settings at the OS
level, (e.g. for accessibility/poor vision) and indeed couldn't find any way
to do this using her OS.

She is using Firefox 1.0.6 on Mac OS 10.4.4.

I have looked in: Firefox 1.5.0.2 on Mac OS 10.2 and Firefox 1.5.0.2 on Win
XP and the font is as intended in those, but for some reason the font in
her's is one size larger.

Any ideas? Did the font size on Firefox on a Mac decrease between 1.0.6 and
1.5???

By the way, the site is:
http://tinyurl.com/p4uk3

<tip title="provide screenshots to designers" author="Stuart Young">
Whenever you are doing some work for a pixel perfect designer from a print
design background, and you have spent hours getting the text to line up
exactly as they want it in both IE and Firefox, make sure you send them a
screenshot of how you see it to prove that it does line up how they want it,
so that they then don't waste both your time by providing a list of changes
(e.g. page 7: make button line up with bottom of 3rd para, page 4: make
button line up with bottom of 5th para, etc.). It is better if the client
realises that the difference between what they see and what you created is
one of those unscrutable oddities of computers, and not professional
slackness or laziness on your part.
</tip>


--
This is the gmail account of Stuart Young
Pt Chev, Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand