[WEB4LIB] "SMALL" HTML problem

Fri Feb 11 19:37:47 EST 2000

James,

Thanks for the info, but <big> and are working just fine. My
original code for the page actually used for big and
 for small, and THOSE worked too. The problem isn't
with the size - the sizes are working just fine. I was looking for a
way to cheap out of putting codes into every <dt>.

I did a global change to put tags after each <dt>
tag (closed with right before the next <dt> tag. That did fix
the problem, but since this is a big file with over 2000 <dt> elements,
I was hoping to get away with one font face invocation near the
beginning of the document. Alas, that doesn't work in Netscape (and I
got the same problem whether I used <big> and or tags.) I just don't know *why* it doesn't work, since
Netscape is usually pretty casual about allowing pages to invoke the
font face once in the beginning and have it apply throughout the
document.

Thanks.

Stacy
James Cayz wrote:
> On Fri, 11 Feb 2000, Stacy Pober wrote:
> >I'm making an HTML document from an Excel spreadsheet of our library's
> >periodical holdings.  I formatted it into a dictionary list. The file
> >displays fine in Internet Explorer, but in Netscape 3.04 and Netscape
> >4.61, the font changes back to the default font after entries with ISSN
> >numbers.
> > [...]
> >
> >Here's a short test file that displays the problem.  If you have any
> >suggestions, please send them along!
> >
> > [...]
> >--
> >Stacy Pober, Information Alchemist
> >Manhattan College Libraries
> >spober at manhattan.edu
> >http://www.manhattan.edu/library/
> 
> Stacy,
> 
> Umm, <small> does not equal <font size=-2> or <font size={anything}>.
> 
> As defined by W3 in the 4.01 (most current) "standard":
> (http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/REC-html401-19991224/present/graphics.html#edef-SMALL)
>  - - - -
> Rendering of font style elements depends on the user agent. The following
> is an informative description only.
>                 [...]
>               SMALL: Renders text in a "small" font.
>  - - - -
> 
> Note that it says "Renders text in a 'small' font", and not "Renders text
> in a smaller font size".
> 
> So, in essence, <small> is both a font face and size change, to whatever
> the browser thinks is best for it.  And </small> wouldn't know what to
> change it back to, other than the standard font.
> 
> It looks like you want <font size=2> for your application.
> 
> James
> 
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-- 
Stacy Pober, Information Alchemist
Manhattan College Libraries
spober at manhattan.edu
http://www.manhattan.edu/library/