point sizes vs. absolute sizes in CSS

[Jeff.Kuntzman at UCHSC.edu]

(sorry if this has been covered before)
I am struggling with converting a large website from
font tags to CSS, and ran up against a problem with
Netscape and specifying absolute sizes in CSS.
Previous messages noted that it's better to use font-size:
x-small or font-size: xx-small - as opposed to point sizes.
The problem for me is that NS4 and IE
render this style of css differently; in fact xx-small
is so small as to be illegible in Netscape.

There is a pretty good explanation of the problem at 
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/fear4/4.html

I need to render 8pt Helvetica/Arial (that's a campus 
standard). There are a still lot of Netscape users at our
campus. If anyone has a solution (other than, don't use 
text that small!) please let me know. I just found out 
Netscape on the Mac isn't at all happy with stylesheets 
that specify small point size.

This is always a great list, by the way!
Jeff Kuntzman
Internet Librarian
Univ. Colorado Health Sciences Center, Denison Library
jeff.kuntzman at uchsc.edu