[WEB4LIB] re: point sizes vs. absolute sizes in CSS

[Thomas Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: <Jeff.Kuntzman at UCHSC.edu>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, June 22, 2001 7:10 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] re: point sizes vs. absolute sizes in CSS


> (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...

> ...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.

I assume you didn't draft your campus standard, so you won't take it
personally if I point out that it's dumb, at least in the context of web
pages.  It attempts (and probably not too successfully) to take a
presentation mechanism that automatically provides font scalability for all
sorts of vision needs and saddle it with a lot of baggage from Bad Old
Technologies.  Even printed with high-contrast ink on low-glare paper at
2400 dpi, 8pt Helvetica is unreadable for a lot of people, and in print you
at least know everyone's "8pt Helvetica" is the same size.  Given what you
don't know about my display environment--monitor size, monitor resolution,
my OS's px/inch setting--you can't even guess what physical size that
typeface is on my monitor.

IMO, if you're going to use the font-size keywords, anything outside small,
medium, or large is asking for trouble, and using the relative sizes
"larger" and "smaller" is nicer to your users.  I prefer the finer degree of
control I get using percentages or ems, and my informal rule of thumb is not
to go lower than 88% of the user's default size and no higher than 120%.


Thomas Dowling
Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu