[WEB4LIB] Re: Pixel sizes for web pages

[Bob Rasmussen]

On Sat, 21 Aug 1999, Sandra Lamar wrote:

> So, the question I would like to append to this discussion is this -- is
> there any way to keep the fonts on the desktop and word processing
> programs large, and still have the 800 x 600 resolution?

There seems to be some confusion in general about this issue. The answer is
YES.

When you set your video resolution higher, but keep the same monitor, then of
course the pixels get smaller. But any good Windows program, and certainly a
browser, will let you change the size of text to be displayed. In IE5, for
instance, go to View:Text Size.

It IS possible, in web page design using Cascading Style Sheets, to specify
explicit point sizes for text, but this is considered bad form.

It is also possible, at the Windows level, to change the size of normal icons,
within limits. 

Thus, I don't believe it is necessary to stick to 640x480 resolution for
readability. The only exceptions I know of would be a) older "standard VGA"
monitors, which can not accept varying scan rates, and b) laptops and other
liquid crystal displays, which have discrete pixels. Otherwise, I recomment
800x600 for 14- and 15-inch displays, and at least 1024x768 for 17-inch. By
increasing your screen resolution, then increasing your text size, you should
get text of the same physical size, but made up of more dots, and therefore
more readable.

Finally, take a look at help features labelled as "accessibility" in Windows.
There you'll find some tools for magnifying parts of the screen for people who
are "ocularly challenged".

-- 
Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
 company e-mail: rsi at anzio.com or sales at anzio.com or support at anzio.com
 ftp://ftp.anzio.com               voice: 503-624-0360
http://www.anzio.com                 fax: 503-624-0760